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The article presents a model of the formation process of new cooperatives, primarily based on studies of the Swedish organizational population. The predominance of pragmatically oriented cooperatives provides an opportunity to study the process's organizational aspects, in relative isolation from ideological factors and the impact of movements. Cooperative formation is seen as an act of collective entrepreneurship, and a key event in the process is the emergence and crystallization of a social bearer for the cooperative project. A review of concrete cases of cooperative formation points to the importance of a prior history, and suggests four bases for the definition of a social bearer: community, need, idea and enterprise. The article closes with a review of the implications of the model for waves of cooperative formation, and for the cooperative's continued life path.

The issue of ownership occupies a central place in research on selfmanagement. This preoccupation has all but relegated other, no less central elements of self-management to a residual role. The actual contribution of ownership is examined in two groups of cases where worker ownership was grafted upon an existing organizational structure: a Swedish sample of worker-owned firms and American ESOP schemes. The findings, buttressed by a theoretical review of the mandator approach and of the managerial revolution thesis, suggest that the conventional model of the self-managed enterprise as a 'firm owned by workers', is theoretically inconsistent and yields, where followed in practice, highly unsatisfactory results. The issue is then reexamined in a theoretical consideration of the concept of ownership and of the way property rights approaches may be applied in the case of complex, indivisible assets, such as an industrial plant. Different ownership constructions are discussed, and the concept of ownership is contrasted with that of membership. It is argued that ownership constructions current among worker-owned enterprises do, in fact, represent attempts to convert ownership to membership.

ABSTRACT*The Swedish welfare system was developed in an incremental fashion in an interaction between the state and a range of voluntary organizations. Consequently, Swedish voluntary organizations do not quite fit accepted typologies, with regard to underlying normative principles, fields of activity and organizational forms. The absolute size of the Swedish nonprofit sector is comparable with that of other European countries. However, the bulk of its activity is within policy formulation, rather than service provision; concepts of membership and popular movement are central, and charitable organizations are marginal. The spread of existing organizational forms is reviewed, with particular reference to the role of cooperatives. New cooperative users' and producers' organizations play an important role in the current expansion of third‐sector organizations providing welfare services. Three case descriptions of new cooperative forms are appended.