Cooperatives – Entrepreneurial Organisational Forms in Local Economy

Abstract

The cooperative, well known in Poland in the interwar period, returns as an organisational form serving the realisation of its own, often basic, life needs of the people. Thanks to the cooperation of entrepreneurial groups, this form creates opportunities for self-management of urban and rural space. Cooperating groups fulfil the needs of cooperative members, including housing, recreation, as well as food and those needs related to everyday human functioning. Despite the lack of a formal legal definition, the cooperative is treated in Poland as a special entity in public-law relations. The aim of the article is to analyse the spatial aspects of the development of individual and group entrepreneurship in Poland with reference to examples from the same area on European markets. The analysis of three cases of participative construction in Poland and a comparison of cooperatives with other legal and organisational forms were carried out in the context of benefits and facilitations of economic and administrative nature. Entrepreneurship in the development of spatial systems is of great importance, while facilitating activities for people who set up a short-term organisation to fulfil their own needs (e.g. a con- struction cooperative) could significantly affect the development of their own (near) and public (further) area. As a case study, construction of individual houses in several Polish cities and their organisational and legal characteristics were discussed.