In May 2003 about 170 students, academics, co-op leaders, and independent researchers from nearly thirty countries gathered at the University of Victoria to attend a conference jointly sponsored by the International Co-operative Alliance, the Canadian Association for Studies in Co-operation and the British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studies. While researchers presented papers on many subjects, the most common focus linking many of the sessions was the field of Co-operative Studies – its nature, limitations and possibilities. It was the first time that the loosely connected networks of people around the globe interested in co-operative organisations and thought had stopped in significant numbers to consider what, why and how they pursued their enquiries. In time, it may prove to have been a seminal event for the development of the field.

Understood more by intuition than by systematic rigour, Co-operative Studies has been referred to in the literature for at least half a century; it is used in the names of more than a dozen research organisations around the world. The field has been gaining momentum in recent years, albeit with healthy differences in various parts of the world. Intuitively, most people involved in its development have understood that the study of co-operative organisations, thought and theory has required unique mixtures of research questions, methods and frameworks. In fact, one might suggest that the unfortunate tendency of co-operative researchers to “talk” essentially with each other about the distinct kinds of issues that concerned them has contributed to the isolation of the field: its relatively low profile within the academy and even its low acknowledgement within co-operative circles. To some extent, the most ardent practitioners of Co-operative Studies have tended to flock with their own kind, their songs unheard, their calls lost amid louder, more pressing and more confident calls.

The Victoria conference marked a serious beginning to the effort to think more systematically and rigorously about the field of Co-operative Studies: to consider its key contemporary questions, to discuss its most useful methodologies, and to think strategically about its future development. While considerable progress was made in discussing the key questions and some of the methodologies, less progress was made in examining the field’s strategic development, perhaps because of the complexity of the issues involved. Among other concerns, envisioning the field’s growth means answering the complex question of why the field is important…why Co-operative Studies matters.

The nature of the field is implicitly understood by most of its practitioners. One of its chief characteristics is its basis in genuine interdisciplinarity. The movement, for example, has a strong historical dimension: its varied schools of thought, socio-economic contexts, and organisational forms reflect diverse origins and differing historical development, patterns that remain even amid transformational changes in any given age, including our own. The discipline of history, therefore, has several meaningful roles within Co-operative Studies, despite the fact that most historians are troubled by the fact that the field – not least in the need to fashion a dialogue between the past and the present – involves a constant exchange between practice and theory, potentially a sullying of the safer bystander role preferred by most historians.

More obviously, though, the field engages considerations of managerial practice within co-operatives. Strangely enough, given the movement’s size and importance in countries like Canada and around the world, this is a dimension that has been inadequately developed, though the concerted efforts by many in recent years, such as those at Leicester University in the United Kingdom and St. Mary’s University in Canada, are welcome efforts to overcome those deficiencies quickly. The relatively few specialists in co-operative business practice, however, are still too few to form a critical mass and they address issues rarely considered in the main journals of their profession. They work with organisations whose diversity and complexity of practice are not easily grasped by “outsiders”, even those in business studies. Most importantly, thinking of the Canadian situation, only a few business researchers, such as Lou Hammond Kettilson, Michel Lafleur and Daniel Côté, build their analysis on the bedrock of co-operative theory and co-operative concerns; most simply adapt a contemporary body of business theory to co-operative organisations, in other days, for example, Management by Objective, more recently, “Total Quality Management”. These applications have often produced interesting and useful results; equally, they have sometimes ignored or deprecated important co-operative nuances. All too often, the co-operative as a distinct type of organisation, with its own kind of organisational dynamics derived from principles, values, and context, has been homogenized into the kinds of organisations for which it was envisioned as an alternative.

There are even greater limitations in the ways in which the discipline of Economics connects -- or does not – with Co-operative Studies. While some agricultural economists and developing bands of social economists are to some extent exceptions, the overwhelming majority of economists in North America do not take co-operatives seriously. Since the decline of institutional economics (which admittedly shows some sign of a comeback) and the eclipse of Keynesian policy frameworks, mainstream economists have paid little attention to co-operatives. Restricting their analysis to labour-managed firms (some of which are co-ops), occasionally broadening their purview to include producer co-ops, they ignore most of the movement, notably financial, consumer and social co-ops. Typically, they do not take account the social roles and unique organisational structures of co-ops, thereby trivializing one of the two central reasons for the movement’s existence. They generally fail to recognize, as do, for example, Stephano Zamagni and Stephen Yeo among others, that co-operatives form a vital part of the Social Economy, itself (arguably) an essential component of any smoothly functioning market economy.

The weaknesses emerging from a stilted historical understanding, limited analysis by business scholars, and near total avoidance by mainstream Economics have profound implications. They mean that co-operatives have developed more in imitation of conventional business than in accordance with their own “inner light”. They have meant that co-operative law and accounting, essential framework disciplines for the operation of sound co-operatives, have lost much of whatever appreciation they may have had for “co-operative differences”, preferring to homogenize practice within co-operatives with that of investor owned firms. They help to explain why post-secondary institutions have been deplorably inadequate in many jurisdictions in researching into, and teaching about, co-operative enterprise and thought. Perhaps most importantly in recent years, they have meant that public debate and policy formation about co-operatives has often been stilted, ritualized and disjointed. Without a strong base in economic thought and development theory, those speaking for co-operatives to government and the public have too often been forced to rely upon assertions of importance and memories of past glories.

Enhanced historical enquiry, more, better situated co-operative business studies, and broader economic analysis, however, will not be sufficient – especially if those involved continue past practice of talking essentially to their own kind. That is partly why the field Co-operative Studies is important: it can provide the framework through which the parts could be made into a greater whole.

Moreover, Co-operative Studies demands deeper analyses of the various strands of co-operative thought (within a global and not just North Atlantic perspectives), a task but barely begun. It also requires a fuller appreciation of the social, economic, political and cultural contexts that underlie both formal co-operative organisations and the fostering of co-operative behaviour. Hence, there is need for historians of ideas (if not philosophers), more sociologists and anthropologists, a greater participation by political scientists, involvement by legal researchers and policy analysts concerned about providing appropriate frameworks for the development of co-operative enterprise.

And, at the end, the expanded research and the building of a field of enquiry only has validity, only achieves one of its key goals, if it translates into improving, diversifying and expanding the application of the co-operative model. The ultimate connection to practice, a fundamental tenet of Co-operative Studies, means that those concerned with helping people associated with co-operatives to meet their training and educational needs – roughly, those engaged in what is called Human Resource Development – are central to the development of the field. They share in the design, often the implementation, of the research; they offer reflections on the current dynamics within co-operatives; they validate – or not – much of the research that is produced; they communicate the results of that research which is immediately useful to the diverse groups associated with co-operatives.

While in some forms Co-operative Studies has all the attributes of an academic discipline – its own questions, adaptations of evolving methodologies, and blending of bodies of knowledge – it also must be a resource for current practice. It must, therefore, be a constantly evolving, continuously broadening and relentlessly deepening field of enquiry. Only then will it be welcomed in the academy, a force in public discourse, and a useful tool for empowering people. In an arid and windswept world, only a deep well can provide the staff of life.

By Ian MacPherson

This article, for which Kathleen Gabelmann provided helpful comments, was originally published in the Newsletter of the Association of Co-operative Educators.