The Oxford Handbook of Mutual, Co-Operative, and Co-Owned Business

The Oxford Handbook of Mutual, Co-Operative, 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.

This complex set of organizations is named differently across countries: from 'mutual' in the UK, to 'solidarity cooperatives' in Latin America. In some countries, such organizations are not even officially recognized and thus lack a specific denomination. For the sake of clarity, this Handbook will refer to member-owned organizations to encompass the variety of non-investor-owned organizations, and in the national case study chapters the terms used will be those most widely employed in that country. These alternative corporate forms have emerged in a variety of economic sectors in almost all advanced economies since the time of the industrial revolution and the development of capitalism, through the subsequent creation and dominance of the limited liability company. Until recently, these organizations were generally regarded as a rather marginal component of the economy. However, over the past few years, member-owned organizations have come to be seen in some countries, at least, as potentially attractive in light of their ability to tackle various economic and social concerns, and their relative resilience during the financial and economic crises of 2007-2017.

Jonathan Michie, Director, Department for Continuing Education and President, Kellogg College, University of Oxford,Joseph R. Blasi, J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations,Carlo Borzaga, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Trento (Italy) and President of the European Research Institute on Cooperatives and Social Enterprise (Euricse).

Jonathan Michie is Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Oxford, where he is President of Kellogg College, Director of the Department for Continuing Education, and Director of the Oxford Centre for Mutual & Employee-owned Business. Jonathan is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; a member of Defra's Economic Advisory Panel; and a member of the Council of the United World Colleges (UWC), and Chair of Governers of UWC Atlantic College. From 1997-2004 he held the Sainsbury Chair of Management at Birkbeck, University of London where he was Head of the School of Management & Organizational Psychology.

Joseph Blasi is the J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations in New Brunswick, New Jersey and Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers. An economic sociologist, Blasi studies the social history of the corporation and corporate governance with a special emphasis on organizations where rewards, power, and prestige are broadly distributed, as in the case of employee share ownership and profit sharing in business. Within the Institute, he also leads a national competitive Fellowship Program that grants research fellowships and gathers over a hundred research scholars in academic conferences on these subjects. He is co-author of The Citizen's Share (Yale University Press, 2013) and a frequent policy advisor on these issues.


Carlo Borzaga is full Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Trento (Italy) and President of the European Research Institute on Cooperatives and Social Enterprise (Euricse). He also chairs the Master Programme in Management of Social Enterprises at the University of Trento and is a founding member of the EMES European Research network. Carlo sits on the scientific committee of numerous Italian and European journals and is co-editor of the newly launched international Journal of Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity (JEOD). He has authored and co-edited numerous books and papers on labour economics and social and cooperative enterprises.

Introduction, Jonathan Michie, Joseph R. Blasi, and Carlo Borzaga
Part I: Diversity and Complexity of Member-Owned Enterprises
1. The Importance of Ownership, Jonathan Michie
2. Entrepreneurial Pluralism, Giovanni Ferri and Angelo Leogrande
3. Liberal Philosophies of Ownership, Stuart White
4. Co-operative Principles and Co-operative Law Across the Globe, Hagen Henry
Part II: Rationale of Co-operative Enterprises
5. Co-operation as Co-ordination Mechanism: A New Approach to the Economics of Co-operative Enterprises, Carlo Borzaga and Ermanno C. Tortia
6. The Social and Political Dimensions of Co-operative Enterprises, Victor A. Pestoff
Part III: History of Member-owned Organizations
7. A Worldwide Historical Worldwide Perspective on Co-operatives and Their Evolution, Vera Zamagni
8. An American Historical Perspective on Employee Ownership, Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse
Part IV: Co-Operatives, Mutuals, Member-Owned And Employee-Owned Enterprises in the Global Economy
9. Worker Co-Operatives: Good, Sustainable Jobs in the Community, Virginie Perotin
10. Credit Unions and Co-operative Banks Across the World, Silvio Goglio and Panu Kalmi
11. Agricultural Co-operatives: A Struggle for Identity, Samira Nuhanovic-Ribic, Ermanno C. Tortia, and Vladislav Valentinov
12. Social and Solidarity Co-operatives: An International Perspective, Giulia Galera
13. Community Co-operatives and Co-operatives Providing Public Services: Facts and Prospects, Pier Angelo Mori
14. How to Think about Global Employee Ownership, Loren Rodgers
Part V: Political, Governance, and Organizational Aspects
15. Evidence: What the US Research Shows about Worker Ownership, Joseph R. Blasi, Richard B. Freeman, and Douglas L. Kruse
16. Enterprise Form, Participation, and Performance In Mutuals and Co-operatives, Zoe Adams and Simon Deakin
17. Governance And Organizational Challenges, Peter Couchman
18. Are Co-operatives Small? Evidence from the World Co-operative Monitor, Chiara Carini and Maurizio Carpita
Part VI: National Case Studies
19. The Mondragon Experience, Xabier Barandiaran and Javier Lezaun
20. Moving Towards 100% Employee Ownership Through ESOPs: Added Complexities in Add-On Transactions, Daniel Tischer and John Hoffmire
21. Social Co-operatives In Italy, Sara Depedri
22. Co-operatives and the Transformation of the German Energy Sector, Markus Hanisch
23. Co-operatives in Latin America, Michela Giovannini and Marcelo Vieta
24. Developing and Sustaining Communities: The Role of Co-operatives, Lou Hammond Ketilson
25. Shared Capitalism in the USA: Evaluation and Future Policies, Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse
26. Workers - and Consumers - of the World Unite! Opportunities for Hybrid Co-operativism, Maurie J. Cohen
27. The Worker Co-operative form in the Home Care Industry in the USA, Daphne Berry
28. Raiffeisenbanks and Volksbanks for Europe: The Case of Co-operative Banking in Germany, Holger Blisse and Detlev Hummel
29. Statutory Employee Stock Ownership Plans in the US, Corey Rosen
30. Employee Ownership in Britain Today, Andrew Pendleton and Andrew Robinson
Part VII: Corporate and Sector Case Studies
31. Corporate Governance Beyond Neoliberalism: Agency, Democracy, and Co-operation, William Davies
32. Co-operatives: A Development Strategy? An Analysis of Argan Oil Co-operatives in South-West Morocco, Zahir Dossa
33. Fair Trade and Co-operatives, Alex Nicholls and Benjamin Huybrechts
34. From Traditional to Innovative Multi-Stakeholder Mutuals: The Case of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, Ruth Yeoman
35. The Emergence of Multi-Stakeholder Co-operatives in the Movement of Farm Machinery Co-operatives (CUMAs) in France, Franck Thomas
36. Agricultural Co-operatives in China, Li Zhao
Part VIII: The Future of Co-operatives
37. US Worker Co-operatives, Mark J. Kaswan
38. The Essential Role of Co-operative Law and Some Related Issues, Antonio Fici
39. Conversion from Stakeholder Value to Shareholder Value Banks: The Case of UK Building Societies, David T. Llewellyn
40. The Performance of Member-Owned Businesses Since the Financial Crisis of 2008, Johnston Birchall
41. Creating Socially Sustainable Enterprise, David Erdal
42. The Co-operative Business Model: The Shape of Things to Come, Charles Gould
Index