Co-operative Management

I came across this small incident in my neighbourhood sometime back, now I wanted to see it through the mirror of rationality and co-operative.

Two brothers were running a grocery store. These brothers were making good business. One of the reasons behind it other than the quality of products was that they tended to the customers very politely and respectfully. And as both of them were present in the shop no customer had to wait for a long period. Moreover they didn’t have to employ any helper both of them smoothly ran the shop. Both the brothers were crowd pullers. I consider this setup as a good small co-operative.

But four years back both the brothers got married. After sometime they divided their store into two parts. The reason behind it was a family fight. The two wives were not comfortable with each other. One brother started selling clothes with grocery and the other one started selling bakery products with grocery. They had to employ helpers, bringing down the profit. Moreover customers started getting confused about which shop to choose for grocery. Slowly they started losing business to other shops. Currently their business is in shambles. People say your family should be given the top priority so I think they went ahead with this decision to keep the closest family happy and to keep fights at bay.

I have put this snippet to show how a successful co-operative can get disintegrated because of issues. These issues could be personal problems or dissatisfaction with group policies. The above case was of real brothers, in a large co-operative people from various backgrounds and interest come together. How the rationality influences them to stick together? What is the binding force and how such issues and controversies are resolved? How do leaders make everyone happy? Which I believe is next to impossible. Are their decisions bound by theories of economics or Human resource policies?

I have crossed the word limit by leaps and bounds but i just felt like writing. Next time I will restrain myself.