Summaries of papers from abstracts selected of papers the XXI International Co-operative Alliance, Cooperatives Research Conference, held in University College Cork, 2005 for readers of the journal

McCarthy, Olive

Cork Open Research Archive

Title Ongoing research issues. Governance, identity and ethics in educationAuthor(s) McCarthy, OlivePublication date 2006-12Original citation McCarthy, O. (2006) 'On-going Research Issues: Governance, Identityand Ethics in Education'.  International Journal of Co-OperativeManagement, 3 (1), pp 59-61.Type of publication Article (peer-reviewed)Conference itemLink to publisher'sversionhttp://www.newharmonypress.coop/journals-2/Access to the full text of the published version may require asubscription.Rights © New Harmony Press Ltd 2006.Item downloadedfromhttp://hdl.handle.net/10468/5105Downloaded on 2018-08-23T18:57:35ZNETWORKING RESEARCH59International Journal of Co-operative Management • Volume 3 • Number 1 • December 2006Summaries of papers from abstracts selected of papersthe XXI International Co-operative Alliance, Co-operatives Research Conference, held in UniversityCollege Cork, 2005 for readers of the journal.Governance Cabo, Paula Sofia & Joao Rebelopaulacabo@ipb.ptGovernance Mechanisms in PortugueseAgricultural Credit Co-operativesCo-operatives are present in almost all sectors of theeconomy. Portuguese agricultural credit Co-operatives(ACCs) have played a significant role in the nationalbanking system. In terms of branches, today, they arethe second largest national banking network with astandalone brand. Like other co-operatives, ACCs arecomplex units relating decision-making and controlprocesses, with a deviant ownership structure and adeviant control structure deriving from theorganizational goal: to provide the best service to itsmembers without profit. In western countries, the specific mission of co-operative banks is no longer defined by the situations ofabuse or absence of services as the initial conditions.Members now experience their relations with their co-operative in a highly evolved competitive environmentoffering choices as much at the individual levels as at thelevel of collective action. In this context, has particularimportance how the governance of these units isexercised. The main objective of this paper is to explainthe governance mechanisms in the ACCs. To achieve thisgoal we collect data from ACCs specific legislation, officialreports (financial statements and others). Afterwards, weanalyse how this governance mechanisms perform, usingan econometric model. So, we estimate a multinomiallogit where the dependent variable reflects the severaldifferent situations of governance intervention: nointervention, board of directors’ change, replacement ofthe chairman, merger or regulators’ intervention. Asexplanatory variables, we used some financial ACCsperformance: bad loans, administrative costs, financialmargin, ROA and leverage. Levin, Michaelmichael.levin@swipnet.se Board composition of Swedish socialenterprises: Governance theories vs. co-operative philosophyThis paper contains research results from 15 SwedishWork Integration Social Enterprises in the field of boardcomposition. Adapting two contrary governancetheories, – namely resource dependence theory andmulti stakeholder theory – for the specific situation ofSwedish social enterprises, a hypothesized boardcomposition with external members (outsiders) was tobe expected. The research shows that in contrast to thisexpected outcome, only 40 % of the sample had anexternally recruited board. 9 out of 15 (60 %) socialenterprises opted for an insider board without externalboard members, in compliance with co-operativephilosophy, principal agent theory and Swedishassociation law. One way of merging possibleperformance advantages for social enterprises (accordingto the resource dependence theory) and co-operativeprinciples could be a specific board composition: internalassociation members as ordinary board members withvoting rights and outsiders as external adjunct boardmembers without governance power.O’Sullivan,Timothytosuilleabhain@eircom.netCorporate Governance And Self Regulation InCredit Unions: The Role Of Credit UnionSupervisory Committees 1997-2002The supervisory committee occupies a position in thecorporate governance structure of Credit Unionssimilar to that of non-executive directors or auditcommittees in the publicly listed company sector.During the years covered by this study, supervisorycommittees gained a much higher profile in the CreditUnion movement than they had previously held,culminating in the founding of a new needs-basednational support organization, The Supervisors' Forum. This paper reports on a study which identifies theissues of concern to the supervisory committees in theearlier years of the study. The study also shows thatmany of the earlier concerns of supervisorycommittees appear to have been addressed andresolved in the period of the study. The study alsoreveals that though supervisory committees are veryactive in the performance of their duty, a substantialOngoing Research Issues. Governance, Identity andEthics in EducationCompiled by Olive McCarthyNETWORKING RESEARCH60 International Journal of Co-operative Management • Volume 3 • Number 1 • December 2006gap exists between this duty performance and the levelof reporting compliance as required by the CreditUnion Act (1997). Values and identity Kurimoto, Akiraakira.kurimoto@jccu.co-opHow Consumer Co-ops Compete by PreservingCommunity Identity: Case of Tsuruoka Co-operative Consumer co-operatives are facing increasinglytougher competition everywhere. The principalcompetition has been fought in the economic term; i.e.how to improve productivity to lower the cost/pricebut they are also competing by demonstrating thesocial and cultural differences. Especially the co-ops inthe rural area are more deeply rooted in communitiesin comparison with ones in the large megalopoliswhere the rootless metropolitan culture prevails. HereI’d like present an example of Tsuruoka Co-operativewhere Han groups were invented in 1950’s.Tsuruoka Co-operative is located in the rice belt in thenorth of Tokyo. Although it is operating retail stores andjoint buying through Han groups in local cities and ruralareas with shrinking population, it is not weivered fromcompetition by nationwide chain stores like Aeon. It ispooling its buying power in the Consortium togetherwith Miyagi Co-operative and Iwate Co-operative. It isalso consolidating its store operations by discontinuingthe unprofitable ones. Its competitive edge is beingdeveloped by the direct transaction with producers(Sanchoku). It is collaborating with agricultural co-operatives under the slogan ‘Consume locally grownproduce’. It also features ‘Today’s catch from seashores’brought by fishery co-operatives. Thus it is encouragingco-operative linkage to the local economy.To cope with the rapidly aging population, it hasmade efforts to create the community based on health-medical-welfare network. Tsuruoka Co-operative andShonai Medical Co-operative had developed long-standing collaboration. They have collaborated inrunning the fitness centre and rehabilitation hospital.They jointly created social welfare corporation to runday care facilities. They also created business co-operative to run service house. They provided manpower to run these facilities while worker co-operativesprovides home care services. Their membership basisis largely overlapping and they are planning to havecommon member relationship officers.These practices can be described as co-operativecommunity as advocated by Dr. Laidlaw. But there aresome shortcomings; weak links with local authoritiesand nonprofits, and lack of participation of women’sleaders. If they can solve these problems, they willbecome a model for co-operative communityregeneration.Hogeland, JulieHogeland@wdc.usda.govNew Generation Co-op; Limited LiabilityCorporation, Value-Added, and Demutualized.What is still “co-operative” about Americanagricultural co-operatives?Many American agricultural marketing and farm supplyco-operatives were created during the 1930’s and 1940’sin response to poor services or unfair prices. Thisexploitation led agricultural economist Edward Nourseto formulate a model of co-operative organizationpopularly called the “competitive yardstick.” Developedin 1945, this model established co-operatives and otherfirms as adversaries, a cultural message which persisteduntil the end of the 20th century.The contemporary phase of co-operative culture andeconomics is the “value-added” co-operative. Theeconomic importance of consumer-branded productshas led co-operatives to develop a less adversarial,more participatory, open culture. Other firms oroutside investors are now a part of co-operativesthrough joint ventures, limited liability corporations(LLC’s) or subsidiaries. New generation co-operativesor investment vehicles like the preferred non-votingstock offered by CHS, Inc. (St Paul, MN) bring capitalfrom non-farm investors into the co-operative. Co-operatives may even de-mutualize to gain furtheraccess to capital. Considered within this paper is the extent to whichavailable case studies and interviews suggest that thesenew organizational forms represent an irreversible“creeping privatization” within American co-operatives.Cook (2004) suggests that co-operatives should beviewed as elastic organizations who can transition fromrepresenting producers with a similar commodityinterests to representing investors whose onlysimilarity is maximizing return on investment (ROI).This view suggests that co-operative and corporateculture will eventually overlap. We take a lesspredetermined view of co-operative evolution in partbased on our study of the demutualization ofCalifornia-based avocado co-operative Calavo (Stanfordand Hogeland (2004). We hypothesize that globalization and free-marketeconomics (neo liberalism) may indeed force co-operatives to become more profit-oriented orNETWORKING RESEARCH61International Journal of Co-operative Management • Volume 3 • Number 1 • December 2006corporate, but only after passing a certain cultural oreconomic “threshold” does the decision to convertseem inevitable. Our study uses interviews and casestudies drawn from traditional, hybrid, or convertedco-operatives to predict and explain where co-operative culture has come from and how it will unfold. Ethics and consumer education Hytinkoski, Pekkapekka.hytinkoski@helsinki.fiThe teaching of co-operation in the web. Thevalues of co-operation meet hacker ethics?In recent years the interest of the researchers of e-learning has shifted from technology towards theelements that promote and prevent the meaningfulnessof e-learning and especially towards the possibilities oflearning in groups and the construction of knowledge.In practice this has led to national research publicationsintroducing different results and lists of the features ofmeaningful e-learning or pedagogic usability (Nevgi &Tirri 2003; Horila, Nokelainen, Syvänen & Överlund2002.) However, the future trend of the research of webpedagogy is the evaluation of societies where thecommon construction of knowledge and problem-basedlearning with the so-called open code is common, andthe transferring of these practices into e-learning. Examples of this can be found for example amongFinnish enterprise hatcheries like Tiimiakatemia orIntotalo or in the process of the Linux operatingsystem, created by Linus Torvalds. Pekka Himanenwrites in his book “Hacker ethics and the spirit of theinformation time” (2001) about hackers, for whom thestarting-point of the work is a problem meaningful tothemselves. A hacker publishes this problem to otherhackers and usually attaches to it his own solution ofsolving the problem, which other hackers can freelyuse (deliver, test and develop). What is interesting, isthat this description has a connection to the principlesof co-operation, presented by ICA for the 21st century.These include for example voluntary and openmembership, democratic administration of the members,independence, education, learning and communicationand co-operation between co-operatives (Pättiniemi &Tainio 2000). Are the employees of a functioning co-operation hackers at best, how about the students of co-operation in the web? A lot of the same elements (e.g.concern for community, networking, memberparticipation, democracy) can be found in the literatureon meaningful e-learning and the principles of co-operation. The study of e-learning, which is partlymarking time, is being directed towards societies, whoseoperations models have a clear connection with co-operative enterprises. All these are a rationale for themapping out of the principles of successful e-learning andco-operation and for describing and studying theconcrete junction of these, the e-learning of co-operation. The target group of the study were the students whohave taken part in the Study COOP training of theRuralia Institute of the Helsinki University. Most of thestudents were the teaching personnel of the MikkeliPolytechnic and the Pieksämäki unit of the DeaconPolytechnic. The further education course started inSeptember 2004 and ended in April 2005. The studentsof the course were asked permission for the study. Thecourse included three different web cycles, from whichinformation was gathered by web questionnaires andthe course of the web discussion was also analysedafterwards. In addition to that, research material wascollected from the university-level web course inOctober to December 2004. 

Ongoing research issues. Governance, identity and ethics in education

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Ongoing research issues. Governance, identity and ethics in education

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