Stream 14

Principle 7 – Concern for the Community - How can cooperatives create a unique bond between members, their communities and the employees in the 21st century?

Stream leads: Eric Brat (HEC Montréal), Enrique Nunes (EM Lyon)

Stream Committee: Eric Brat (HEC Montréal), Sacha Ghadiri, (HEC Montréal), Paul Hernandez, (HEC Montréal), Enrique Nunes (EM Lyon)

Description:

The 7 cooperative principles are guidelines by which cooperatives put their values into practice. Principle 7 – concern for community, emphasizes the key role of cooperatives in their communities. This is both a formal commitment and a unique opportunity to contribute to striving and sustainable local communities.

In parallel, we observe a growing market pressure on corporations to become more socially and environmentally responsible. This motivates a larger set of companies to engage publicly in ESG policies, with a strong market pressure to communicate multiple initiatives.

The objective of this stream is to review the status of research on the principle 7, identify recent practices and approaches implemented by cooperatives, discuss effectiveness and uniqueness of the practices and open discussion on how to maintain this critical aspect of cooperatives values at the forefront of the cooperative movement.

This research stream is essentially multi-disciplinary and could cover multiple academic disciplines and topics. Suggested topics include:

• strategy definition and implementation,

• marketing and philanthropic strategies,

• resource allocation and management of programs and organization design,

• tax planning

• communication and discourse analysis of concern for the community.

As part of this research stream, we invite academics and practitioners to share research and successful experiences.

References:

References are available on PortailCoop: https://portailcoop.hec.ca/permalink/P-9f38e1c3-afd2-4167-8465-21aa017164d8