This incisive Handbook provides a global update on the state of knowledge in cooperatives and mutuals, expertly describing future directions for research and education. Showcasing extensive discussions of cooperative theory, Matthew Elliott and Michael Boland, and the contributors assess cooperatives' social, economic and environmental effects and analyse the impact of regional and cultural features that make cooperatives unique. The insightful chapters are organised into key sections, including theory, organisation, governance and cross-sector applications, and introduce a relevant theory, framework, special topic or mini case on cooperatives and mutuals. The Handbook also examines the role of leaders, members and producers in supply chain governance and looks at different forms of cooperatives and mutuals and their prominence in the economy. Offering an excellent in-depth read, this Handbook will be a vital additional resource for economics scholars and researchers, and those teaching and working on cooperatives and mutualism. It will also prove helpful for conducting leader and member education programs.

This book revolves around the idea that capitalism is not a democratic system and that a system of producer cooperatives, or democratically managed enterprises, gives rise to a new mode of production which is authentically socialist in essence and fully consistent with the ultimate rationale underlying Marx's theoretical approach. The author argues that the cooperative firm system outlined in this book offers a rich array of non-economic benefits that justify its classification as a 'genuinely socialist' entity, with real potential for achieving true economic democracy. This book will be required reading for all economists who are not content with the current capitalist economic system, and yet will still provide intriguing and thought-provoking insights for those who are.

Berkshire Hathaway, the $300 billion conglomerate that Warren Buffett built, is among the world's largest and most famous corporations. Yet, for all its power and celebrity, few people understand Berkshire, and many assume it cannot survive without Buffett. This book proves that assumption wrong.

In a comprehensive portrait of the distinct corporate culture that unites and sustains Berkshire's fifty direct subsidiaries, Lawrence A. Cunningham unearths the traits that assure the conglomerate's perpetual prosperity. Riveting stories recount each subsidiary's origins, triumphs, and journey to Berkshire and reveal the strategies managers use to generate economic value from intangible values, such as thrift, integrity, entrepreneurship, autonomy, and a sense of permanence.

Rich with lessons for those wishing to profit from the Berkshire model, this engaging book is a valuable read for entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, and investors, and it makes an important resource for scholars of corporate stewardship. General readers will enjoy learning how an iconoclastic businessman transformed a struggling shirt company into a corporate fortress destined to be his lasting legacy.

MCKINSEY TOP 5 RECOMMENDED READ 'An underground hit' - Best Politics Books, Financial Times 'Jon has one of the few big ideas that's easily applied' - Sam Conniff, Be More Pirate 'A wonderful guide to how to be human in the 21st Century' - Ece Temelkuran, How to Lose a Country: the Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship Description Citizens opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive as individuals, organisations, and nations. Over the past decade, Jon Alexander's consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of Britain's biggest organisations including the Co-op, the Guardian and the National Trust. Here, with the New York Times bestselling writer Ariane Conrad, he shows how history is about to enter age of the Citizen. Because when our institutions treat people as creative, empowered creatures rather than consumers, everything changes. Unleashing the power of everyone equips us to face the challenges of economic insecurity, climate crisis, public health threats, and polarisation. Citizens is an upbeat handbook, full of insights, clear examples to follow, and inspiring case studies, from the slums of Kenya to the backstreets of Birmingham - and a foreword by Brian Eno. It is the perfect pick-me-up for leaders, founders, elected officials - and citizens everywhere. Organise and seize the future! Reviews 'Society is like an out of control house party - eating, drinking and consuming everything. Jon is the organiser of the campfire gathering behind the party. It's calm and welcoming and you won't want to leave. In Citizens, Jon and Ariane show how to leave the burning house of the Consumer Story and join the campfire that is the Citizen Story.' - Stephen Greene, CEO of RockCorps and founding Chair of National Citizen Service UK 'The belief that every single one of us has both the potential and the desire to make the world better drives me every day, in everything I do. In Citizens, Jon shows how taking that belief as a starting point really could transform our world. This is a truly powerful book, in every sense of the word.' - Josh Babarinde, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur 'Every great transformation requires a new story. A story that reveals new possibilities and points toward an optimistic alternative to the current situation. Citizens presents just such a story.' - Tim Brown, Chair of IDEO and author of Change By Design 'The shift from consumer to citizen is a truly big idea. If you're in a position of strategic influence, I strongly recommend you engage with this and consciously explore what it might mean for your organisation.' - Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE, Former Director General, National Trust, and Trustee, BBC 'There is such a thing as an idea whose time has come. This is that idea.' - James Perry, Board Member, B Lab Global, and Founding Partner, Snowball Investment Management About the Authors JON ALEXANDER began his career with success in advertising, winning the prestigious Big Creative Idea of the Year before making a dramatic change. Driven by a deep need to understand the impact on society of 3,000 commercial messages a day, he gathered three Masters degrees, exploring consumerism and its alternatives from every angle. In 2014, he co-founded the New Citizenship Project to bring the resulting ideas into contact with reality. In Citizens, he is ready to share them with the world. ARIANE CONRAD has built a career turning big ideas into books that change the world. Known as the Book Doula, she has co-written several New York Times bestsellers. BRIAN ENO is an artist, philosopher and Citizen who has played a critical part in British culture since the early 1970s. He is a deep believer in the power of ideas and the possibility of a better world, beliefs which manifest both in his audio and visual art, and in his deep engagement with social, political and environmental issues. Buy the book to carry on reading

The Economic Theory of Socialism and the Labour-Managed Firm focuses on market socialism and the relevant debate among economic theorists. It argues that market socialism is the only rational form of socialism and that market socialism with labour-managed firms is by far the best form of market socialism. The book begins with a critical review of the contributions to the economic theory of socialism. The second part discusses the economic theory of labour-managed firms and pays particular attention to the adverse labour-supply curve, underinvestment, monitoring and the separation of ownership and control. The final chapters discuss problems such as the control of economic activity in labour-managed firms, worker motivation and incentives. This book will be of particular use to students and academics interested in comparative economic systems and to specialists in politics and sociology with an interest in alternative forms of economic organization.

What matters to us? One way of answering that question is through the lens of values, which have a powerful influence on our attitudes and behaviours. Yet it can be difficult for businesses to realize the true potential of values, which is to engage staff, customers and suppliers in an emotional way that touches on their own core motivations. Drawing on a range of case studies worldwide, including "profit with purpose" businesses such as co-operatives, this short guide reveals how to make a success of values. By unpacking what we mean by values and ethics, and setting out a series of practical approaches, Ed Mayo presents how values can become a natural part of commercial life. This book identifies both the pitfalls and the potential of bringing values into the heart of an organization, from a bank that responds to an ethical crisis to a fast-growing worker co-operative founded on the values of equality. The values that guide your business are not necessarily the ones that are written down, or that you would expect. There is no one right or wrong set of values, but there is power and potential in making the most of the values that are right for the business you are in. By reading Values: How to Bring Values to Life in Your Business, you will find out more about the business that you are, and the business that you could be.

More than a guide to establishing a proposal system, this volume presents methods for teaching know-how. It gives each reader the principles for thinking creatively about improving his or her own work.

This highly practical book is filled with easily understood explanations and examples of how to teach your employees to pursue excellence through kaizen teian.

Before you can institute a successful kaizen teian program, you must have a firm understanding of its underlying principles and rules. This book concentrates on making those principles clear and focuses on the importance of consistently implementing proposals. Actual examples of implemented proposals from five leading Japanese companies illustrate the principles described, and numerous figures and case studies add clarity throughout. If you are ready to tap into the full potential of your work force, this book will help you to train them to seek out new and ever better ways to do their work.

This book explores and analyzes cooperative management and provides insight into how Korea's consumer cooperatives have evolved and been managed. It focuses on Korea's consumer cooperative management practices and examines their growth and performance. This book is an invaluable resource for those interested to learn more about the successes and failures of consumer cooperatives.

The Italian Cooperative Sector is amongst the largest in the world comprising over 60,000 cooperatives from all sectors of the economy directly employing 1.3 million people. Cooperatives created close to 30 percent of new jobs in Italy between 2001 and 2011 demonstrating that democratic cooperative enterprises can successfully operate in a market economy combining economic success and social responsibility. These offer a viable alternative to profit maximising enterprises and an opportunity to create a more pluralist and democratic market economy. The Growth of Italian Cooperatives: Innovation, Resilience and Social Responsibility comprehensively explains how the Italian cooperative sector has managed to compete successfully in the global economy and to grow during the global financial crisis. This book will comprehensively explain how the Italian cooperative movement has managed to grow into a large successful network of cooperatives. It will examine the legislative framework and their unique business model that allows it to compete in the market as part of a network that includes central cooperative associations, financial and economic consortia, and financial companies. It will explore cooperative entrepreneurship through a discussion of the formation of cooperative groups, start-ups, worker-buyouts and the promotion of entirely new sectors such as the social services sector. Finally, The Growth of Italian Cooperatives examines how cooperatives have managed the GFC and how their behavior differs from private enterprises. It will also analyze the extent to which cooperatives compete while still uphold the key cooperative principles and fulfil their social responsibility. This book is an interdisciplinary study of cooperative development and is designed to inform members of the academic community, government, public policy makers and cooperative managers that are primarily interested in economic democracy, economics of the cooperative enterprise, cooperative networks and economic development, cooperative legislation, democratic governance, job creation programs, politics of inclusion and how wealth can be more equitably distributed.

First published in 1951. The purpose of this study was to consider the prospects of the British Co-operative movement in all its main aspects and not as a consumers' movement only. The author examines ways in which the Co-operative enterprise, in its various forms, could best be fitted into the economic structure of the coming society. This title will be of great interest to scholars and students of labour history.

Since 1958, the economic theory of the participatory or labor-managed firm and its performance compared to capitalist firms, has exploded into a vast literature comprising several hundred articles. Indeed, as one early contributor has recently remarked, the theory has become a 'new discipline' in itself. Producer Cooperatives and Labor-Managed Systems provides, for the first time, a careful selection of the most significant theoretical and empirical contributions to this burgeoning field, and promises to become a valuable research tool and reference volume.

Jim Paul's meteoric rise took him from a small town in Northern Kentucky to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all -- his fortune, his reputation, and his job -- in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.

This book -- winner of a 2014 Axiom Business Book award gold medal -- begins with the unbroken string of successes that helped Paul achieve a jet-setting lifestyle and land a key spot with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It then describes the circumstances leading up to Paul's $1.6 million loss and the essential lessons he learned from it -- primarily that, although there are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in them, all losses come from the same few sources.

Investors lose money in the markets either because of errors in their analysis or because of psychological barriers preventing the application of analysis. While all analytical methods have some validity and make allowances for instances in which they do not work, psychological factors can keep an investor in a losing position, causing him to abandon one method for another in order to rationalize the decisions already made. Paul and Moynihan's cautionary tale includes strategies for avoiding loss tied to a simple framework for understanding, accepting, and dodging the dangers of investing, trading, and speculating.

First published in 1951. The purpose of this study was to consider the prospects of the British Co-operative movement in all its main aspects and not as a consumers' movement only. The author examines ways in which the Co-operative enterprise, in its various forms, could best be fitted into the economic structure of the coming society. This title will be of great interest to scholars and students of labour history.

In Maharashtra state, nearly one hundred sugar factories are owned and operated by peasants. Large in scale and efficient in operation, these factories are organized as cooperatives, with half a million cane growers as their voting members. In many cases, the co-ops have out-competed factories owned by industrial capitalists. This book describes th

What matters to us? One way of answering that question is through the lens of values, which have a powerful influence on our attitudes and behaviours. Yet it can be difficult for businesses to realize the true potential of values, which is to engage staff, customers and suppliers in an emotional way that touches on their own core motivations. Drawing on a range of case studies worldwide, including "profit with purpose" businesses such as co-operatives, this short guide reveals how to make a success of values. By unpacking what we mean by values and ethics, and setting out a series of practical approaches, Ed Mayo presents how values can become a natural part of commercial life. This book identifies both the pitfalls and the potential of bringing values into the heart of an organization, from a bank that responds to an ethical crisis to a fast-growing worker co-operative founded on the values of equality. The values that guide your business are not necessarily the ones that are written down, or that you would expect. There is no one right or wrong set of values, but there is power and potential in making the most of the values that are right for the business you are in. By reading Values: How to Bring Values to Life in Your Business, you will find out more about the business that you are, and the business that you could be.

The current co-op movement in the U.S. seeks to be a structural alternative to capitalism; this book seriously questions whether the current movement can accomplish that task. Carl Ratner offers a rich and unique political analysis and critique that provides helpful insights into the practice and problems of the contemporary cooperative movement. Noting that co-operators tend to view their work as apolitical because the explicit influence of national political parties is absent, the author constructs a compelling argument that co-operators nonetheless operate unwittingly with implicit political conceptions of freedom, opportunity, human rights, social participation, decision-making, power, and governance that are shaped and limited by the capitalist economic system. Ratner demonstrates how a more radical, anti-capitalist, socialist form of cooperation and co-ops are needed to realise the fulfilling potential of cooperation and co-ops. For those wishing to understand and advance the cooperative movement, this book is essential reading.

`Cooperatives stem from interchanges in day-to-day life; and have the capacity to extend their reach to cover economic exchanges across time and space. They offer a complementary form of relationships to the ones economists typically study and favour. A culmination of years of research, this book quite magnificently explains and persuasively advocates a much neglected institution.' - Sir Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, UK This eloquent book analyses the theory of the cooperative form of enterprise from an historic perspective, whilst assessing its appeal in the current economic environment. The authors show that cooperatives are enterprises acting in harmony in the market economy, and explore the following questions: * How do cooperatives achieve solidarity in keeping together elements normally considered in conflict? * Why is the cooperative enterprise not as widespread as the capitalist enterprise? * What is its appeal in the present conditions of crisis of the world economy? Alongside other related issues, the volume also discusses the theoretical foundations of the cooperative enterprise and offers an overview of the historical development of the cooperative movement around the world. Special reference is made to the Italian case, which is scarcely known within the international milieu. Broad in scope whilst concise in elucidation, this book will be invaluable to students enrolled in economic, social, historical and political curricula, as well as leaders of the cooperative movement. People interested in finding a practical alternative to the capitalist form of enterprise will also find this book enriching.

First published in 1999, this book attempts to understand housing co-operatives in terms of their development over time and their relationships to other types of housing tenure. The book considers them within the framework of the broader co-operative movement and its role in society's overall system of production and exchange. There is an examination of the role of a form of ownership which is neither "private", nor "state" in six countries, and in some cases the fortunes of housing co-operatives seem closely to correlate with periods of political liberalization and crises, heralding a shift in ideological orientation.

`Cooperatives stem from interchanges in day-to-day life; and have the capacity to extend their reach to cover economic exchanges across time and space. They offer a complementary form of relationships to the ones economists typically study and favour. A culmination of years of research, this book quite magnificently explains and persuasively advocates a much neglected institution.' - Sir Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, UK This eloquent book analyses the theory of the cooperative form of enterprise from an historic perspective, whilst assessing its appeal in the current economic environment. The authors show that cooperatives are enterprises acting in harmony in the market economy, and explore the following questions: * How do cooperatives achieve solidarity in keeping together elements normally considered in conflict? * Why is the cooperative enterprise not as widespread as the capitalist enterprise? * What is its appeal in the present conditions of crisis of the world economy? Alongside other related issues, the volume also discusses the theoretical foundations of the cooperative enterprise and offers an overview of the historical development of the cooperative movement around the world. Special reference is made to the Italian case, which is scarcely known within the international milieu. Broad in scope whilst concise in elucidation, this book will be invaluable to students enrolled in economic, social, historical and political curricula, as well as leaders of the cooperative movement. People interested in finding a practical alternative to the capitalist form of enterprise will also find this book enriching.

Like any book, this one is part of a dialogue. Over the years, I have asked thousands of questions, of myself and others, and tried to answer some. Out of all this discussion, a written pattern has grown. It is certainly not a definitive pattern. Among those whose words have been woven into it, there are many who might have fashioned it better. There are some who would have selected different colors and textures, or who might have preferred a totally different pattern. I am conscious of their voices and wish that I could adequately present them all. First and foremost are the voices of farmers and other villagers, whose experiences I have tried to understand and represent. A few of them will read this book and decide whether I learned anything from all their patient answers. If they were so inclined, they could tell more about the subject than I ever can.

This book explores and analyzes cooperative management and provides insight into how Korea's consumer cooperatives have evolved and been managed. It focuses on Korea's consumer cooperative management practices and examines their growth and performance. This book is an invaluable resource for those interested to learn more about the successes and failures of consumer cooperatives.

First published in 1999, this book attempts to understand housing co-operatives in terms of their development over time and their relationships to other types of housing tenure. The book considers them within the framework of the broader co-operative movement and its role in society's overall system of production and exchange. There is an examination of the role of a form of ownership which is neither "private", nor "state" in six countries, and in some cases the fortunes of housing co-operatives seem closely to correlate with periods of political liberalization and crises, heralding a shift in ideological orientation.

The economics of worker cooperatives is a branch of economic inquiry with a long and esteemed pedigree, dating at least from the work of John Stuart Mill in the mid-nineteenth century. Since then, leading economists have paid intermittent attention to the topic, but the collapse of state-sponsored socialism in Eastern Europe and growing discontent with loosely-fettered capitalism have resulted in a resurgence of interest in worker co-operatives as a method of enhancing productivity and reducing income inequalities without heavy government regulation. Professor Pencavel's judicious selection of articles by leading scholars conveys the vigour and rigour of this new empirical research. His original introduction provides an authoritative guide to past and current thinking in this topical area and raises important issues, which point the way for further contributions to the already rich literature.

Title first published in 2003. Contributors from a wide range of European countries illustrate the validity of four propositions about employee participation: that different forms of employee participation mutually reinforce each other; that major shifts in employment relations require innovative approaches to participation; that appropriate conditions (including the provision of training and support) are required for the spread of participation; and that trade unions remain a crucial foundation for the promotion of participation.