Community and Economic Development

A Targeted Approach to Worker Co-op Development: Lessons from Mondragon and Northern Italy

Author(s): 
Sherman L. Kreiner
Year: 
1989
PACE of Philadelphia has used an extremely "targeted" strategy for developing worker-owned enterprises in the food business. Our results include a food-brokerage company, a lobster plant and distribution warehouse and a network of supermarkets (the O&O Store) in the Philadelphia area. The O&O stores are formally linked through a second-degree co-operative which sets standards for use of the trademark and tradename, establishes requirements for technical assistance, facilitates deals for goods and services for all stores and serves as a locus for discussion of common problems.

Resilience of the Cooperative Business Model in Times of Crisis

Author(s): 
Johnston Birchall and Lou Hammond Ketilson
Year: 
2009
This report will provide historical evidence and current empirical evidence that proves that the cooperative model of enterprise survives crisis, but more importantly that it is a sustainable form of enterprise able to withstand crisis, maintaining the livelihoods of the communities in which they operate. It will further suggest ways in which the ILO can strengthen its activity in the promotion of cooperatives as a means to address the current crisis and avert future crisis.

Concept Paper: Asset Building through Cooperative Business Ownership: Defining and Measuring Cooperative Economic Wealth

Author(s): 
Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Year: 
2008
Many cooperative studies scholars and co-op practitioners believe that successful cooperative businesses create wealth and help their members accumulate wealth and/or assets. Individual asset building or wealth accumulation is assumed to be an outcome from cooperative ownership, in addition to individual and community benefits such as job creation, education and training, income generation, affordable quality products, social capital development, and economic stability.

Subjects of Scale / Spaces of Possibility: Producing Co-operative Space in Theory and Enterprise

Author(s): 
Janelle Terese Cornwell
Year: 
2011
This dissertation addresses key questions raised in Human Geography and Economic Geography concerning scale and the production of space, alternative economic geographies and co-operative economic development. It is the product of a five year ethnographic investigation with cooperative enterprises in Western Massachusetts and the broader Connecticut River Valley of Western New England.

Building a Platform for Economic Democracy: A Cooperative Development Strategy for the Bronx

Author(s): 
Nicholas Iuviene
Year: 
2013
Cooperative development efforts over the last 25 years have been largely inspired by, and modeled on, the Mondragon experience in the Basque region of Spain. None of these efforts has achieved nearly the success of Mondragon, which stabilized and dramatically developed a regional economy through the creation and growth of a diverse set of industrial worker and supportive secondary cooperatives. US efforts in cooperative development have typically replicated some aspects of the Mondragon model but ignored others.

The Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives:Exploring the Potential of Co-op Led Development

Author(s): 
Erbin Crowell
Year: 
2010
[Excerpt] Toward the end of my time with Equal Exchange, I came into contact with members of the co-ops that make up the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-ops (VAWC). I was impressed by the tradition of collective management among these co-ops and the manner in which they had come together to begin developing a network of mutual support in their region. The number and diversity of the enterprises represented in the network was very different from my experience of worker co-ops as isolated enterprises.

Social Development in an Uncertain World: UNRISD Research Agenda 2010–2014

Author(s): 
UNRISD
Year: 
2010
The UNRISD research agenda for 2010–2014 is grounded in a particular understanding of social development, including not only improvements in material well-being but also progress in relation to equity, social cohesion and democratic participation. Over the past decade, UNRISD research has focused on how social policy contributes to development.

Building Resilient Sustainable Economies via the Cooperative Sector and Flexible Specialization: Lessons from the Emilia Romagna Region of Italy

Author(s): 
Joe Rinehart
Year: 
2009
This paper discusses the potential for economic networks to aid in the creation of resilient and sustainable economies, and the social, economic and governmental supports necessary to create those networks. Specifically the cooperative and cooperative networks of the Emilia Romagna region of Italy are examined as well as the system of flexible specialization in production and Industrial Districts that also in exist in that region, along with the support of the La Lega cooperative network, the local culture and regional and national governments.

A Comparative Analysis of Cooperative Sectors in Scotland, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland

Author(s): 
Johnston Birchall
Year: 
2009
Research clearly shows there is considerable scope to generate sustainable economic development by embracing collaborative business models. This is particularly the case in the current climate – where the benefits of co-operation are known to reduce risk, enhance productivity and release wider social, personal and economic benefits. Given the debate about the competitiveness of smaller countries, we wanted to explore the cooperative sectors in three of Europe’s most successful economies – Sweden, Switzerland and Finland – and to consider the implications for Scotland.

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