Assessing Organizational Effectiveness of Member-owned Enterprises in the northeast United States

Organizational effectiveness (OE) is the concept of how effectively an organization achieves its goals. For example, for a for-profit business organization such a goal may include making profit or achieving a certain growth rate while such goals for a non-profit or an educational institution would be different. Given the importance of OE in managing an organization, it is surprising that the issue of OE is ignored or overlooked in both management literature and the literature related to member-owned enterprises, such as on cooperatives. Despite their widespread participation in U.S. economy, little is known about the organizational effectiveness of these member-owned enterprises. Using survey-based primary data, we assess OE in member-owned enterprises in the northeast United States. Our results show that most of the member-owned enterprises were effective in achieving most of their multidimensional goals. Such results give insights into the organizational effectiveness of member-owned enterprises and how they could be more effective in reaching their organizations’ missions and goals. It was clear from this exercise that there is no single approach to evaluate organizational effectiveness in member-owned enterprises. This research addresses gaps in both business management and the literature related to member-owned enterprises, such as cooperatives and mutuals.