The Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity (JEOD) launches a call for papers for a special issue on “The Cooperative Advantage for Community Development”. Guest editors: Marcelo Vieta ([email protected]) and Doug Lionais ([email protected]). The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2014.

Background

While some theorists have minimalized cooperatives as “transitional” firms or “inefficient” organizations with “incentive” issues (e.g., Furubotn & Pejovich, 1970; Hansmann, 1996; Jensen & Meckling, 1979), empirical evidence has shown that coops are diverse organizations that efficaciously address a plurality of socio-economic needs (e.g., Borzaga & Galera, 2012; Perotín, 2012; Zamagni & Zamagni, 2010). Cooperation seems to actually be effective in provisioning for myriad life needs, and cooperatives do so in more egalitarian and sustainable ways than investor-owned firms. Cooperatives, in a nutshell, embody what has been called “the cooperative advantage” (Birchall, 2003; Novkovic, 2007). This includes their horizontal structures, their tight links to local communities, the principles and values of mutual aid and self-help that drive them, their counter-cyclical trends in times of crises, and the overall “associative intelligence” they promote amongst members (Macpherson, 2002).

Coops have historically highlighted the “cooperative advantage” in how they have responded to situations of socio-economic shortcomings or distress. In times of austerity especially, coops (re)emerge to prominence as community development organizations. More than simply a coping mechanism, however, coops are used to construct alternative economic spaces (Leyshon, Lee, & Williams, 2003). For instance, the cooperative sector has played a key role in the social, cultural, and economic revival of regions such as the Basque Country, Trentino, and Kerala. In response to more recent austere times, Cleveland has set out on a path of rebuilding community wealth through worker cooperatives. These and other examples demonstrate the potential for cooperatives to stabilize, repair, build and shift community economies. Indeed, cooperatives have proven to be highly effective firms for a new type of community development—for another development different to the one offered by advocates of the neoliberal, “trickle-down” model.

The Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity (JEOD) invites researchers to submit theoretical, empirical, or historical papers or case studies that analyze, demonstrate or critique the cooperative advantage for community development. We encourage papers from the perspectives of organizational, management, development, environmental, or cooperative studies, or from the broader fields of economics, sociology, geography, anthropology, or other social sciences. Papers must have a sound analytical base. We are open to different research methodologies, as long as they are relevant to the topic and employed rigorously. Possible methodologies include, for example, empirical studies, experiments, surveys, theoretical models, meta-analyses, and case studies. In empirical work, it is important that relevant results are statistically or economically significant.

Case studies must be treated rigorously, and require any theoretical proposition to be supported by econometric tests or solid historical and circumstantial evidence.

Literature reviews that integrate findings from many studies are also welcome, but they should synthesize the literature in a useful manner and provide a substantial contribution to the debate.

Call for papers

Research questions that could be taken up include, but are certainly not limited, to the following:

1.     Is there a cooperative advantage in community development?

2.     What promising cooperative experiments or movements exist today, or existed in the past, that contribute or contributed to (an alternative?) community development?

3.     How do the International Cooperative Alliances’ principles and values facilitate (or hinder) the cooperative advantage for community development?

4.     Do cooperatives contribute to poverty reduction, socio-economic inclusion, social cohesion, social justice, or peace?

5.     Do cooperatives contribute to the formation of social norms of trust, reciprocity, and cooperation?

6.     How can the cooperative advantage be theorized in regards to community development?

7.     How can the cooperative advantage respond to the need for more environmentally sustainable economic realities?

8.     Can the cooperative advantage help reconfigure social, political, or economic dimensions in more sustainable and more equitable directions?

9.     How is the cooperative advantage being deployed today in the global North or South, and in particular in the former Eastern Bloc’s “transition economies,” or within otherwise marginalized communities?

10.  How do cooperatives relate to other progressive forms of economic alterity, particularly those of the solidarity and social economies

Submission Procedure

Submissions can be made via the journal website at: www.jeodonline.com. Please indicate clearly that you are submitting for the “Cooperative Advantage for

Community Development” issue. Information on the submission process and formatting requirements are available on the site.

Deadline for submissions: February 1, 2014.

Please direct any further inquiries to the issue’s guest-editors:
Marcelo Vieta ([email protected]) or Doug Lionais ([email protected]), or to Ilana Gotz, JEOD Managing Editor ([email protected]).

References

Birchall, J. R. (2003). Rediscovering the co-operative advantage: Poverty reduction through self-help. Geneva: International Labour Organization.

Borzaga, C., & Galera, G. (2012). Promoting the understanding of cooperatives for a better world: Euricse's contribution to the International Year of Cooperatives. http://www.euricse.eu/en/euricse-contribution-IYC

Furubotn, E. G., & Pejovich, S. (1970). Property rights and the behaviour of the firm in a socialist state: The example of Yugoslavia. Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, 30(3-4), 431-454.

Hansmann, H. (1996). The ownership of enterprise. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305-360.

Leyshon, A., Lee, R., & Williams, C. C. (2003). Alternative economic spaces. London: Sage.

MacPherson, I. (2002). Encouraging associative intelligence: Co-operatives, shared learning and responsible citizenship. Journal of Co-operative Studies, 35(2), 86-98.

Novkovic, S. (2008). Defining the co-operative difference. Journal of Socio-Economics, 37(6), 2168-2177.

Pérotin, V. (2012, March 15-16). Workers' cooperatives: Good, sustainable jobs in the community. Paper presented at the Promoting the Understanding of Cooperatives for a Better World. San Servolo, Venice, Italy.

Zamagni, S., & Zamagni, V. (2010). Cooperative enterprise: Facing the challenge of globalization. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.