5.2.2 Differences in the key characteristic of participatory governance

The essence of participatory governance differs in the three examined tailor- made legal forms. Participatory governance is prescribed by the provision of multi-stakeholder ownership of shares and/or membership, which leads to multi-stakeholder governance, e.g. in the Greek Koinsep and the Belgian VSO. Alternatively, it is prescribed by the encouragement of consultation with various types of stakeholders alongside the company’s decision-making processes, e.g. in the CIC. In addition, the rules regarding the correlation between ownership of shares and control and the exercise of voting rights (number of votes) by stakeholders also varies in the three examined tailor-made legal forms. In the Belgian VSO and the Greek Koinsep, where multi-stakeholder ownership of shares and multi-stakeholder governance is permitted, no strong correlation between the ownership of shares and the vote in decision-making processes was found in law. For instance, either the decision-making processes were based on equality and democratic decision-making with the application of the rule of ‘one man, one vote’ (e.g. in the Greek Koinsep), or they were subject to a voting cap, which eliminated the number of votes of the participants in the decision-making processes (e.g. in the Belgian VSO).