This Handbook investigates all types of 'member owned' organizations, whether consumer co-operatives, agricultural and producer co-operatives, or worker co-operatives among many others. The chapters reflect the latest academic research and thinking on each topic, as well as reporting the relevant policy debates.

The Oxford Handbook of Mutuals and Co-Owned Business investigates all types of 'member owned' organizations, whether consumer co-operatives, agricultural and producer co-operatives, worker co-operatives, mutual building societies, friendly societies, credit unions, solidarity organizations, mutual insurance companies, or employee-owned companies. Such organizations can be owned by their consumers, the producers, or the employees - whether through single-stakeholder or multi-stakeholder ownership.

The historical relationship between capital and labor has evolved in the past few decades. One particularly noteworthy development is the rise of shared capitalism, a system in which workers have become partial owners of their firms and thus, in effect, both employees and stockholders. Profit sharing arrangements and gain-sharing bonuses, which tie compensation directly to a firm’s performance, also reflect this new attitude toward labor. Shared Capitalism at Work analyzes the effects of this trend on workers and firms. The contributors focus on four main areas: the fraction of firms that participate in shared capitalism programs in the United States and abroad, the factors that enable these firms to overcome classic free rider and risk problems, the effect of shared capitalism on firm performance, and the impact of shared capitalism on worker well-being. This volume provides essential studies for understanding the increasingly important role of shared capitalism in the modern workplace.

Employee participation encompasses the range of mechanisms used to involve the workforce in decisions at all levels of the organization - whether direct or indirect - conducted with employees or through their representatives. In its various guises, the topic of employee participation has been a recurring theme in industrial relations and human resource management. One of the problems in trying to develop any analysis of participation is that there is potentially limited overlap between these different disciplinary traditions, and scholars from diverse traditions may know relatively little of the research that has been done elsewhere. Accordingly in this book, a number of the more significant disciplinary areas are analysed in greater depth in order to ensure that readers gain a better appreciation of what participation means from these quite different contextual perspectives. Not only is there a range of different traditions contributing to the research and literature on the subject, there is also an extremely diverse sets of practices that congregate under the banner of participation. The handbook discusses various arguments and schools of thought about employee participation, analyzes the range of forms that participation can take in practice, and examines the way in which it meets objectives that are set for it, either by employers, trade unions, individual workers, or, indeed, the state. In doing so, the Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world who present and discuss fundamental theories and approaches to participation in organization as well as their connection to broader political forces. These selections address the changing contexts of employee participation, different cultural/ institutional models, old/'new' economy models, shifting social and political patterns, and the correspondence between industrial and political democracy and participation.

This title is a collection of interdisciplinary research from contributors including both philosophers and neuroscientists. Topics covered include the neurobiology of learning and memory perception and sensation, neurocomputational modelling neuroanatomy, neuroethics, and neurology and clinical neuropsychology.

This edited volume showcases how the European cooperative banks have continued to evolve amid a new competitive scenario that resulted from the Global Financial Crisis started in Europe in 2008. The cooperative banking paradigm has been put under an unprecedented pressure as a consequence of factors such as the exceptionally low interest rates set by the European Central Bank, low profitability generated by traditional banking services—which are the backbone of the cooperative banking business—and the entrance of fintech companies into the banking market. Furthermore, tightening regulation since the beginning of the crisis has produced an increased capital and liquidity burden which in some cases have forced cooperative banks to reduce lending to their members and customers, putting under question the traditional countercyclical role of cooperative banks in periods of crisis. For these reasons, it is of the utmost value to observe and analyse how cooperative banks have been reacting in the attempt to preserve their unique business model and, at the same time, to keep providing credit to the economy. A number of scholars active in the cooperative banking sector have been involved in this edited volume as contributors.

Cooperative Enterprises is the first textbook to examine the evolution of the cooperative enterprise model and the contribution that cooperatives can make to the economy and society. It provides an accessible overview of the subject, looking at history, cooperative models, theories, legislation, and governance. Cooperative Enterprises takes an international approach throughout, drawing on examples from cooperatives from across the globe. The book offers a valuable historical perspective, placing cooperatives within their political, social, cultural, and economic contexts since the Industrial Revolution. It analyses and compares the cooperative law of 26 jurisdictions and showcases key defining moments for cooperative enterprises, cooperative development models, cooperative‐specific good practice standards, and compares the cooperative model with the private enterprise model, giving readers a comprehensive view of the subject. The book also demonstrates that cooperatives correct the market, complement the role of the state, support local economic development, reduce income and wealth inequalities, promote social cohesion, and promote economic democracy. Students are supported with a range of pedagogical features, including case studies, tables, figures, chapter summaries, and discussion questions to encourage critical thinking. This is the ideal textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on cooperative studies, and will also be an illuminating resource for students, researchers, and policymakers interested in social enterprise, business history, economic history, corporate governance, economic democracy, and community development.

This volume explores an expansive array of organizational imaginaries, or conceptions of organizational possibilities, with a focus on collectivist-democratic organizations, to showcase how organizations can ultimately support and serve broader communities.

Sociology and social theory has always been a major source of new perspectives for organization studies. Access to a series of authoritative accounts of theorists and research themes in sociology and social theory which have influenced developments in organization studies is essential for those wishing to deepen and extend their knowledge of the intersection of sociology and organization studies. This goal is achieved by drawing on a group of internationally renowned scholars committed in their own work to strengthening these links and asking them to provide critical accounts of particular theorists and research themes which have straddled this divide. This volume aims to strengthen ties between organization studies and contemporary sociological work at a time when there are increasing institutional barriers to such cooperation, potentially generating a myopia that constricts new developments. Used in conjunction with its companion volume, The Oxford Handbook of Sociology and Organization Studies: Classical Foundations, the reader is provided with a comprehensive account of the productive and critical interaction between sociology and organization studies over many decades. Highly international in scope, theorists and themes are drawn from both the USA and Europe in equal measure. Similarly the authors of the chapters are drawn from both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a series of chapters on individuals and key research themes and debates which will provide faculty and post graduate researchers with appreciative, authoritative and critical accounts that can be drawn on to design courses or provided guided reading to the field.