Call for Papers: Entering a new era of cooperativism?
With this joint call for papers, the Review of Cooperative Studies (ZfgG) and Journal of Social Economy and Common Welfare (ZGuG) invite you to submit contributions to either one of the two journals on the following topic:
Entering a new era for cooperativism?
Cooperative entrepreneurship – due to the massive economic crises in the 21st century – currently enjoys a remarkable upswing in both, its academic reception as well as its practical, real-world implementation. An increase in the number of cooperative start-ups and changing public views on economic issues seem to alter the way in which a cooperative way of doing business and cooperative values and principles are being perceived. In some parts of the world, new social movements of an explicitly cooperative type have emerged; there ´new cooperativism’ – as distinct from ‘old cooperativism’ – has become a commonly used term.
The increased interest in cooperativism in Central Europe is likely to stem from the search for new answers to economic, social and ecological challenges, and the growing importance given to sustainability and community-driven development. There is a new interest in ethical, socially sustainable, inclusive, horizontal, democratic and participatory management. New forms of collective ownership are being experimented with so as to arrive at a fairer distribution of the social good generated by entrepreneurial activities.
ZfgG and ZGuG react to these developments by dedicating them a thematic issue each. Do feel invited to submit papers along the topics outlined below and enrich both issues from your academic perspective!
Please submit your paper to either the one or the other of the two journals. The editorial team will address you in case of overlapping. We accept papers written in either the German and English language.
For question regarding ZGuG please contact: weigner@wise.uni-koeln.de
For questions regarding ZfGG please contact: redaktion@zfgg.de
Submissions should fit one of the following topics:
1. Cooperatives and sustainable development
Any research covering the interrelations between the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) and cooperatives, their frameworks and principles.
2. Renewal of cooperative values and principles
Contributions on the linkages between cooperatives, welfare economy, common good economy and social entrepreneurship as well as potential influences on (internationally agreed upon or national) cooperative values and principles.
3. Normative and legal innovation to accommodate multi-stakeholder governance
Under this heading contributions should discuss suitable governance structures as well as legal and statutory designs for cooperatives, cooperative societies, and associations to pursue sustainability, multi-stakeholder participation, and local development.
4. Financing and incentive structures of new cooperatives
This line focusses on the contributions to as well as chances and risks of new cooperative financial concepts such as crowdfunding/crowd lending/crowd investment and international financing for member promotion. We are interested in scientific work as well as presentations of existing concepts and case studies.
5. Competencies for cooperativity
Please submit contributions centering on the acquisition of competences by pupils and students, cooperative members, management staff and federation partners aiming at sustainability, the common good, sharing of common resources, or solidarity.
6. Political initiatives and room for new cooperative activities
This stream addresses the analysis of new development opportunities public measures directed at cooperative and common wellbeing, including those initiated during the Covid-pandemic crisis, might provide.
7. Provisions for diversity
Cooperative organizations frequently pay special attention to diversity and the interests of minority groups, provisions which have not been sufficiently reflected in academic literature so far.
8. Cooperative concepts of wealth creation
We appreciate papers on monitoring, controlling, accounting and reporting on common good and welfare effects, for example reporting on member promotion, environmental, or social impact as well as new cooperative incentive systems and their framework conditions.
9. Digital and platform cooperatives
This stream aims for papers discussing evidence on how cooperatives can successfully enter into oligopolistic, international produce markets, and what consequences this might have for employment, data protection, or intellectual property rights.
10. Cooperative communication and publications
We welcome publications that deal with IT instruments such as blockchain, new processes in distributed cooperative organizations or the realization of control tasks using algorithms in order to save costs.