Failing to develop a sense of ownership: A study in the consumer co-operative context

Abstract

Emerging interest in psychological ownership in the domain of marketing calls for better understanding of situations wherein the customers are also the owners of the company. Accordingly, psychological ownership has been proposed to capture the intimate link between customer-owners and the cooperative. However, empirical research has found a diluted relationship between customer-owners and cooperatives in practice. The paper examines empirical data from customer-owners of a Finnish retail cooperative for insight into the factors that prevent feelings of psychological ownership from emerging. By means of thematic analysis, the study identified nine challenges and several distinct reasons for them.

Keywords

• psychological ownership
• consumer cooperative
• cooperative