engleski

Cooperative Based Organisational Structures: Implications for Croatian Tourism

The third sector economy approach with organizational forms like cooperative based organisation structures that pursue both social and economic goals with an entrepreneurial spirit, is being increasingly used in all sectors. World science and practice recognised the impact of these structures as part of overall social economy movement. Considering tourism as a powerful economy generator, main purpose of this paper is to relate best practices regarding organizational characteristics of cooperatives with practical appliance in Croatian tourism. The paper is focused on the analysis of main organizational characteristics of cooperatives as well as constraints and problems related to their specific structure. Theoretical background of the concept is presented and several best practices of successful cooperatives are described in order to identify which values, principles and management practices build positive influence on the success of cooperatives. Another set of research of secondary data is conducted on the sample of existing cooperatives in Croatia including their number, sector and structure. Therefore, this paper intends to contribute not only to changing attitudes towards cooperative organisational structures in Croatia, but will also provide theoretical arguments for implementation of cooperatives into tourism sector – an idea which has not yet been systematically considered before in this region.

cooperatives ; organisational structure ; tourism ; Croatia

nije evidentirano