Author Archives: lasairdhubh

Like all businesses, cooperatives can fail. Cooperatives can go bankrupt, but they can fail in another way too. Over time, cooperatives can degenerate. Cooperatives are said to degenerate when, under economic pressure, they abandon their cooperative principles and start adopting capitalist … Continue reading →

I just read a wonderful review article entitled “Worker Cooperatives: Good, Sustainable Jobs in the Community.” It was authored by Virginie Pérotin from the Leeds University Business School and was published in the Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity. In this … Continue reading →

In order to have a growing and sustainable cooperative business ecology you need at least two things: first, you need a continuous stream of newly founded worker-owned firms entering the ecology, either through conversions or as startups; and second, you need a growing cooperatively-owned financial … Continue reading →

Ross Brown at the University of St. Andrews and his colleagues recently published research demonstrating that Scottish employee-owned businesses outperform capitalist firms as measured both by growth in employee numbers and by growth in turnover. It is a small study – … Continue reading →