The entire development of a business enterprise in a particular country required difference institutional frame work.
One of such institutional frame work is the co-operative business enterprise. The word co-operative can have different interpretation. In a lay man’s language, it means working together or working mutually. Another interpretation which is where our emphasis lies, means a unique type of business organization. The co-operative has been defined by different school of thought but the variation lies in the degree of emphasis on one aspect or the other.
One school of thought describes co-operative as business undertaking owned and operated by voluntary associations in order to provide members with work and wages or with goods and services. But the International co-operative alliance (ICA) defined co-operative as "An autonomous association of persons, united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise.