Enforcement of the fundamental law on cooperatives promoted establishment of organizations in various fields in only a year. This is because the establishment criteria became more relaxed than the existing special law, and also new corporate entities ...
Enforcement of the fundamental law on cooperatives promoted establishment of organizations in various fields in only a year. This is because the establishment criteria became more relaxed than the existing special law, and also new corporate entities such as corporations, limited liability companies, incorporated associations, and foundations have been introduced. Cooperatives are expected to bring about new effects in South Korean market economy by job creation and contribution to social welfare, etc., and these effects can affect the field of performing arts that is included in the market economy structure.
Therefore, this study is focused on the possible effects of cooperatives as a productive production model for performing arts industry, by comparing it with non-profit corporations that are common in the field. The current status of performing arts groups and professionals were analyzed to define problems and cooperative and non-profit corporation were compared to study the form of organization that is suitable for problem solving.
Today, performing arts organizations and professionals have many financial difficulties. This is due to the nature of performing arts as public goods, and difficulty of making profits because the supply and demand does not operate by the logic of market economy. Therefore, they highly rely on external support rather than internal profits, and are commonly operated as a non-profit corporation. Because non-profit corporations can conduct projects with support funds but cannot make profit as a purpose, the organizations and professionals still have difficult times.
Comparison of cooperative and non-profit corporation showed that cooperatives can secure basic finance through other equity investment and bring out active participation of cooperative members, and have different management method from conventional corporations such as one-person-one-vote system and cooperative associations. There was a possibility of financial improvement because the purpose of cooperatives is benefits of members of the organization and, unlike non-profit corporations, they can make profits.
The new management system of cooperatives can result in various positive effects in the performing arts field. However, cooperatives are in the early stage in South Korea, there were no specific success cases, and this study should be limited to discovering possibility of it as a productive management model. In order not to repeat trials and errors committed by other systems such as social enterprise, there should be various institutional and administrative enhancement and continuous research.