Herzlichen Glückwunsch an Malte Müller, der im Mai 2021 seine Doktorarbeit erfolgreich verteidigt hat. In seiner Forschungsarbeit untersuchte Malte Müller, welche Faktoren dazu führen, dass Mitglieder landwirtschaftlicher Erzeugergemeinschaften nicht eigennützig handeln, sondern zum Wohle der Gemeinschaft.
Agricultural producer organisations and cooperatives are considered to have a high potential for contributing to rural growth and poverty reduction. On the other hand, many of these organisations suffer from internal collective action problems where individual, short-term interests conflict with the organisation’s collective goal. Applying behavioural economic methods, Malte Müller shows in his dissertation that social norms, such as fairness and altruism, the role of legitimised leadership and mutual learning, play an essential role in preventing the self-interested behaviour of members. The research results show that the diversity of producer organisations should be taken more strongly into account in political strategies. It is also essential for support measures from politics and development cooperation that financial incentives for cooperatives do not contradict the purpose of the cooperative itself.