Conference 2017
UKSCS 50th anniversary conference: The co-operative commonwealth
This anniversary conference took place at Newcastle Business school, Northumbria University 1-3 September. Its focus was on the broad concept of ‘common wealth’, which requires re-thinking ownership, control and management of ‘public’ goods and services.
The concept of ‘common wealth’ takes as its starting point issues of prosperity, well-being, and resilience. It requires a re-thinking of ownership, management and control of public, social, and private institutions; place-shaping, polycentric governance structures; and processes that eschew individualised property rights and commodification of public goods.
So, can co-operatives and multi-stakeholder owner and managed enterprises continue to provide a ‘public’ alternative to the McDonaldization and Uber-ization of society ? To create common wealth? A ‘shared society’? Can they influence business practice to promote and showcase sustainable and responsible enterprise? Does working co-operatively make for more meaningful jobs and lives?
Key note speakers
- Tony Webster - Co-operation, wealth, and entrepreneurship
- Arien van Nuland - CEO Netherlands Coop Council
- Martin Large - Co-operative commonwealth
- Closing discussion - Mike Neary - Co-operative leadership for higher education: A research report
The main conference was preceded by a doctoral colloquium facilated by Dr Jan Myers and Dr Rory Ridley-Duff.
PDF of presentation: Webster - Co-operation, wealth, and entrepreneurship in 21st century
Presentations, panels, workshops, & open space discussions
Co-operative history
- Perez, P - Radical Roots: A history
- Bibby, A - Forward to the Co-operative Common Wealth
- Praeseyto et al. - Towards cooperative empowerment model: how organization evolved within a democratic indigenous community
- Pearson, L - Pioneer Architecture: Buildings of the British Co-operative Movement, 1860-1980
Co-operative education
- Boehm, C - Through a fractured looking glass: Higher arts education and connectedness
- Neary and Noble - Co-operative by design: Co-operative pedagogies for higher education
- Johnson, H. Can collaborative online learning in groups promote co-operative reflective practice?
- Ross, C. Co-operative education: Surveying the landscape
- Noble and Porter: The challenges of building co-operative HEIs
Rountable Discussion: Now is the time: ways forward to achieve co-operative HE
Co-operative governance & accountability
- Maddocks, J - Co-operative value? Drawing lessons from social value
- McCulloch, M - Accounting for real utopias - not for profit accounting as possible inspiration for co-operatives
- Jones, P - Ensuring effective credit union governance
- Bortoletto et al. - Does 'cooperative' governance matter?
- Hilardio et al. - Independence Level and Economic Performance in Brazilian Agribusiness Cooperatives
- Telidevara et al.: Technical efficiency analysis of performance of dairy co-operatives using governance and operating systems
Co-operation in public service
- Eastman & Barratt, Social care: the co-operative advantage?
- Myers, J. - Can co-operatives safeguard UK public services?
- Webb et al. - Valorising London's co-operative heritage of skateboarding
- Martins, J. - South-south co-operation amongst co-operatives: an analysis of Brazil
Politics of co-operation
- Ridley-Duff, R - The internationalisation of FairShares: where agency meets structure in UK and US company law
- Merritt, J - Experiments in socialism: dialetics and cooperation
- Coulthard, P. - Can a self-organising structure grow and meet the challenges of ISO9001:2015 which is mainly written for hierarchical groups
- Perez and Macrias - Welcoming the descent into anarchy: co-operatives as schools of degrowth
Learning and managing co-operatively
Hierarchy: The enemy of co-operation - Interactive workshop faciliated by Bob Cannell
Open space discussions
- Steve Wagstaff - CoopMaps
- Rory Ridley-Duff - Introduction to FairShares labs and the FairShares model
- London's Co-operative Heritage of Skateboarding - video
- John Maddocks and Maureen McCulloch - Symposium on co-operative accounting research
Panel discussion
The Co-operative Commonwealth: A distractive panacea (Chair: Ian Adderley)
Edgar Parnell joined by Martin Large and Rory Didley-Duff
