The Appeal and Correspondence of Co-Operative Values and Personal Values of the Youth

The motivation of this study is the ongoing attitudinal change towards more sustainable values and the notion of young people's frustration towards the "cold and hard values" gaining more foothold in our society. We used a mixed methods approach. At first we introduce findings of a quantitative survey collected from 3680 Finnish students identifying their personal values and attitudes towards different business forms. Benevolence, security and self-direction were the most appreciated values among the sample. In general it was perceived that hard values direct business life as a whole whereas attitudes towards co-operatives appeared positive. Next by using qualitative textual data gathered from 36 students we aimed at increasing understanding of why co-ops are perceived positively and how the established idea of co-operatives was interpreted. We identified four levels of discourses from the data, each describing co-operative ideas from different viewpoints: ideological, national, organizational and personal. Based on the findings, we conclude that co-operative ideology is regarded as appealing due to its emphasis on social responsibility. At the national level the data permits the conclusion that the attraction to co-operative values may partly be a culture-bound matter. At the organizational level responsibility and security were emphasized. Co-ops were perceived to stabilize the economy, contribute to local areas and provide individuals with secure employment. At the personal level these aspects were associated with security and continuity in the fast changing societies. We conclude that the co-op values seem to correspond well with the personal values of the youth and that the appeal of co-ops is based especially on the security that arises from co-op values and principles.