When cooperatives were first invented, it was assumed their membership would be limited to one type of user. The Rochdale Pioneers favoured consumers, and employee representation was deliberately limited to a set percentage of board members. Similarly, Schulze Delitsch and Raiffeisen privileged...

This article considers the challenge of socio-economic development within biosphere reserves (BRs). How to achieve compatibility between human activities in BRs has not been considered in detail. Part of the issue is methodological; BRs have common aims, but greatly differ in terms of their...

This is the introductory article to the JEOD Special Issue on “Community-Based, Collaborative Solutions to Sustainable Economic Development in and around Biosphere Reserves”. In introducing the topic, we make the case for joining the experience of practitioners and scholars in the writing of...

This work is motivated by the question of how organisational governance can address the needs of vulnerable groups. This paper offers a conceptual reflection on how the production of complex health-related services, such as aspects of preventive psychiatric illnesses, can be governed to the...

The new agri-food market is considered a detrimental factor for the competitiveness and financial equilibria of agricultural cooperatives. According to this view, as a result of market saturation and globalisation processes, shifting investments to supply chain forward activities (e.g., for...

Our general aim is to appreciate how social enterprise can create a space of cooperative relations and opportunities that impacts beneficially on community welfare. We refer to cooperative relations that are aimed at the pursuit of a social goal. In this sense we include only the bright side of...