Co-operatives are largely invisible in UKs 100+ Business Schools. They teach/research about state-owned enterprises & not-for-profits, but not Co-ops. Why? And how can Co-ops be made visible in Business Schools Here’s the link to register for the Eventbrite: Next meeting of the Senedd Cross-Party Group for Co-operatives and Mutuals Tickets, Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite
What’s to be done – with thanks to Prof Colin Talbot
The co-operative and mutual sector is virtually invisible in business schools. This is not because such schools only study and teach about for-profit, investor owned, businesses. Many run courses and even whole degrees on public sector and not-for-profit businesses (the latter especially being much smaller than the co-operative sector).
In order to change this, we shall address the various networks and institutions that have grown up representing business and management studies. The three most important ones are probably: Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS), British Academy of Management (BAM), Association of MBAs (AMBA).They are the three main vectors for inserting co-operative studies – research and education – into higher education. With limited financial support from government, there are many ways this could be done, for example:
- Sponsoring teaching and, importantly, research per Special Interest Groups in CABS or BAM.
- Offering a prize for best contribution to Co-operative Business Studies in Wales.
- Offering bursaries to study co-operative business at Business Schools in Wales.Free availability of Co-op News & the Journal of Co-op Studies within business schools.
- Offering speakers and preparing course materials for one-off sessions or whole modules.
- Partnership events with co-operatives to build trust and collaboration.
What was a achieved by one Welsh Business School – over 20 years ago.
The Cardiff Institute for Cooperative Studies (previously the Wales…) was part of the UWIC – now Cardiff Metropolitan University Business School and was established in 2002.
It was set up by cooperative and trade unions supporting academics.
Academically its roots date back to 1990 debates about the relevance and meaning of what was called ‘critical management’. Grounding the debates in practice was difficult to establish and the group in Cardiff recognised that cooperatives were a radical and challenging departure from conventional management aims and practice.
The aim was to research existing cooperative such as Tower Colliery to demonstrate the extent they were different but also worked, as well as review and promote less traditional forms of cooperative production, such as in young peoples’ music.
Around 20 or so academic papers, books, research and consultancy reports were published. Many are still widely cited in international level publications.
One later development was to explore cooperatives as ‘social movements’ and how they might impact on transformative social and economic change.
