Solidarity, Resilience and Re-Claiming the Commons

At the midpoint of the University of Victoria’s 2013 IdeaFest, Ana Maria Peredo, Director of the Centre for Cooperative and Community-based Economy (CCCBE), welcomed a large and diverse group of university and community members to a stimulating discussion led by Mike Lewis, arising out of the launch of a new book, The Resilience Imperative. Written by Mike Lewis, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Economic Renewal [check title] and Director of the BC-Alberta Research Alliance on the Social Economy, together with Pat Conaty of the UK New Economics Foundation, the book reviews a wide range of important success stories in the emerging social economy.

In introducing Mike, Rod Dobell, Senior Advisor at CCCBE, noted that this latest work forms part of a long career directed toward linking ideas to action within the social economy. Reflecting the ongoing research agenda of the Centre, that work operates in part at a theoretical scale, building on many years of literature addressing the dynamics and resilience of the complex social-ecological systems in which all human activity is embedded. More importantly, it attempts to link this work with continuing experimental work in behavioural social sciences, cognitive structures and experiential learning to understand and promote the emergence of cooperative forms of organization and evolution of social norms of reciprocity and trust.

Mike’s presentation was characteristically pointed and dynamic, and will be accessible through the CCCBE website.

-Sandy Polomark

Worker Cooperatives as an Organizational Alternative: Challenges, Achievements and Promise in Organizational Governance and Ownership

Ana Maria Peredo from the Gustavson School of Business, Centre for Co-operative and Community Based Economy and University of Victoria would like to invite papers for this special journal edition of the journal Organization.

Examples of key themes for investigation allowing for further international comparisons include:

1. The organizational resources, structures, and dynamics allowing for social as well as economic resilience in worker cooperatives;

2. The changing roles of leadership in worker cooperatives: considering for example the interplay of various forms of leadership from charismatic to collaborative or group-based;

3. The capacity of and obstacles to the reinvention of democracy within cooperatives, including means to manage and solve conflicts between different goals, sectors, and constituencies (for example, concerning the relationship between worker-member-owners and temporary workers);

4. The relationships between cooperatives and organized labour, the state, the community, and the larger financial system;

5. Maintaining cooperative values while facing crises of participation, identity, and shared ownership and decision making within a system undergoing international expansion.

Papers should be no more than 8,000 words, excluding references, and will be blind reviewed following the journal’s standard procedures. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines published in Organization and on the journal’s website

For more information, contact Ana Maria Peredo aperedo@uvic.ca