Community and Economic Development

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Anchor Mission: Leveraging the Power of Anchor Institutions to Build Community Wealth: A Case Study of University Hospitals Vision 2020 Program Cleveland, Ohio

Author(s): 
Farzana Serang, J. Phillip Thompson, Ted Howard
Year: 
2013
This case study discusses a pathbreaking strategy in Cleveland, Ohio, that addressed the economic challenges facing the city by generating local wealth, economic opportunity, and jobs. The strategy involved the expansion of the University Hospitals, an important anchor institution. The study is based on in-depth interviews with key stakeholders.

Sustainable Economic Democracy: Worker Cooperatives for the 21st Century

Author(s): 
Nicholas Luviene, Amy Stitely, Lorlene Hoyt
Year: 
2010
This guide explores the worker cooperative network as a neighborhood, municipal and regional strategy for generating wealth. It presents two examples: the well-established Mondragon Complex in Spain and the nascent Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland Ohio. Drawing from these two cases the authors then put forth a general framework for building a scalable cooperative network in post-industrial American cities.

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.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Community and Economic Development