AbstractThird world workers' co-operatives are heavily dependent on the industrialized nations for their technological innovations. They often have difficulty implementing them because of lack of management, marketing and financial skills.Being run by the workers, the co-operatives' principal consideration is to provide security of employment. They can fall behind their private sector competitors because they are less willing to introduce labour saving technology.In organizational innovation, the third world co-operatives are certainly ahead of the private firms in their own countries, and probably of co-operatives in the UK.