Non-financial cooperatives through the lens of finance: why should they differ from non-cooperatives?

Finance for non-financial cooperatives is a quite neglected topic in international literature. The modern financial theory, in fact, is tailored to large corporations: similarly with small business, studies try to identify what theoretical hypotheses are applicable and what not in financial decisions of cooperatives in light of their differences with respect to corporations, by theorising for exceptions and by adopting a residual approach. Empirical comparisons between financial decisions of cooperatives and those of corporations could be a fruitful approach to highlight the differences and to trigger the development of a wider extended financial theory. However, empirical findings are limited, mixed and not univocal, as emerge from the short review here provided, therefore not generalisable since referred to specific industries and countries. In this study, we try to theoretically rationalise if and why some specific features of cooperatives can affect their financial decisions in terms of performance measurement, capital structure choice and reasons and objectives of merging.