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ABSTRACTThis paper aims to analyze the objectives pursued by cooperatives upon opening doors to new members and how this affects business activity and financial indicators. Surprisingly, the results show that accepting new partners makes no positive impact on the return on assets, but it does make a variable impact on financial indicators according to the type of cooperative. Distinguishing between agricultural and worker co‐ops, we conduct a cross‐sectional study of a sample of Galician cooperatives to find whether they apply this principle the same way regardless of membership size. Our results corroborate that cooperatives apply the principle differently. This not only allows us to extract other relevant information from accounting for cooperatives, but it also permits other agents like financial entities to obtain indicators that reflect the true company image more adequately.

This paper analyzes how co-operative principles, particularly democratic management, affect the co-op's economic objective. The theoretical model specifies the characteristics presented by the production function so democracy generates positive net income. Costs derived from maintaining the one person one vote criterion are explicitly incorporated into this function upon new membership. The results show that democracy contributes to the economic success when the decision-making strategy followed by the partners considers all cooperative principles, especially when a retained earnings policy is regularly applied. This study can be extended to all of Social Economy firms concerned about reinforcing democratic institutions through the business sector. This study can be extended to all of Social Economy firms concerned about reinforcing democratic institutions through the business sector.

This paper analyzes how co-operative principles, particularly democratic management, affect the co-op's economic objective. The theoretical model specifies the characteristics presented by the production function so democracy generates positive net income. Costs derived from maintaining the one person one vote criterion are explicitly incorporated into this function upon new membership. The results show that democracy contributes to the economic success when the decision-making strategy followed by the partners considers all cooperative principles, especially when a retained earnings policy is regularly applied. This study can be extended to all of Social Economy firms concerned about reinforcing democratic institutions through the business sector. This study can be extended to all of Social Economy firms concerned about reinforcing democratic institutions through the business sector. ; Este artículo analiza cómo los principios cooperativos, particularmente la gestión democrática, afecta al objetivo económico de la cooperativa. El modelo teórico muestra qué características debe presentar la función de producción de la empresa para que la democracia genere ingresos netos positivos. Los costes derivados de aplicar el criterio de una persona, un voto, ante la entrada de nuevos socios, son explícitamente incorporados en esta función de producción. Los resultados muestran que la democracia contribuye al éxito económico cuando la estrategia de toma de decisiones aplicada por los socios respeta el conjunto de principios cooperativos, especialmente cuando se adopta habitualmente una política de excedente positivo. Este estudio puede extenderse a todas las empresas de Economía Social interesadas en reforzar las instituciones democráticas en la gestión empresarial.