HE INTERNATIONAL OURNAL OF Co 4operative ManageMent

Co-operative - Journal:Layout 1 30/09/2013 10:21 Page 6NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORSCommunity Works, LLC, an affiliated for-profitaffordable multifamily housing developmentorganization. Ms. Lewis was appointed byPresident Barack Obama to the Board of theOverseas Private Investment Corporation, thefederal government's development financeinstitution. She is the immediate past Chair of theCo-operative Development Foundation. She wasinducted into the Co-operative Hall of Fame in2008.Correspondence: terry.lewis.lia@gmail.comMarkus Mändle is Professor of Economics andDirector of the Institute for Co-operative Studies(IfK) at Nürtingen-Geislingen University (HfWU),Geislingen/Steige, Germany. He is also Memberof The Berlin Institute for Cooperative Studies(BICS) at Humboldt-University, Berlin. Markusobtained his degrees (Dipl.-Ök., Dr. oec.) fromthe University of Hohenheim (Germany). He ismember of scientific and professional associations(e.g. gif, ERES, AREUEA, Verein für Socialpolitik).Markus is author and also editor of variouspublications, primarily regarding co-operatives.In research, he is mainly interested in theapplication of economic theory to co-operativeorganizations.Correspondence: markus.maendle@hfwu.deFrancesco Minora, is a Marie Curie Post docresearcher 2010 programme, co-funded by theProvince of Trento & the European Commission.He is an urban planner with a backgroundresearch experience in social policies at thePolitecnico di Milano. He studied the theory ofthe commons during his Ph.D. studies. He is thecorresponding author for this paper.Correspondence: francesco.minora@euricse.euDavid Mullins is Professor of Housing Policy andleads the Service Delivery and Housing streamsin the Third Sector Research Centre (TSRC) atthe University of Birmingham. His researchinterests include the governance, managementand regulation of housing, housing need andhomelessness, the role of third sector, hybridorganisations and social enterprises in publicservice delivery. He is a member of theCoordination Committee of the EuropeanNetwork for Social Housing and has publishedwidely in peer reviewed journals.Correspondence: d.w.mullins@bham.ac.ukJames Akinjide Oderinde is currently a SeniorPrincipal Lecturer and the immediate past head ofthe Department of Urban and Regional Planning,The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Nigeria. He holds aMasters Urban and Regional Planning (MURP)degree from University of Ibadan Nigeria andM.Phil (URP) from Ladoke Akintola Universityof Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. He is aregistered Town Planner and a member of severalprofessional bodies including Nigerian Instituteof Town Planners. His area of research interestinclude housing and urban development.Correspondence: oderindej@yahoo.comHugo Priemus is Professor Emeritus of Housing,Delft University of Technology, based at OTBResearch Institute of the Built Environment. Heis doctor honoris causa at Uppsala University(Sweden), Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion,and holds the Honorary Gold Medal of DelftUniversity of Technology and the Hudig Medal(awarded approximately once in every five yearsfor exceptional contributions in Dutch housingand spatial planning).Correspondence: h.priemus@tudelft.nlDr. Daphne Rixon is Associate Professor ofAccounting. She has a PhD in accounting from theUniversity of Warwick, United Kingdom and is aCertified Management Accountant (CMA). She hasover 20 years experience in the private and publicsectors as Controller and Director of Finance. Dr.Rixon has a very productive research program whichhas resulted in over 30 peer-reviewed publicationsand conference presentations. She is a member of theEditorial Boards for Managerial Finance and theJournal of Co-operative Accounting and Reportingand is a frequent reviewer for Public Management.Dr. Rixon also has taught in the CMA StrategicInternational Journal of Co-operative Management Volume 6 Number 2 September 20135

Co-operative - Journal:Layout 1 30/09/2013 10:21 Page 7NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORSLeadership Program for 12 years. She has served onthe board of directors for several professional andcharitable organizations at both national andprovincial levels.In addition to her position of Associate Professor,she is also the Executive Director of the Centre ofExcellence in Accounting and Reporting for Cooperatives (CEARC) where she is responsible for theoverall administration of CEARC, co-ordinatingresearch projects and overseeing the development ofInternational Statements of Recommended Practicesfor Co-operatives.Correspondence: daphne.rixon@smu.caChristin Wemheuer, studied psychology with aspecialization in environmental psychology.Former research includes the acceptance ofrenewable energy technologies, the co-operationof Local Agenda 21 initiatives with commercialand scientific institutions and sustainablehabitation. Since 2010 she is scientific assistantin the subproject “Habitation” of the researchproject “Solidarische Stadt – GenossenschaftlicheHandlungsmöglichkeiten in Zeiten desKlimawandels” at the Technische UniversitätBerlin. The project is funded by the GermanFederal Ministry of Education and Researchwithin the “Social-Ecological Research” fundingpriority.Daman Prakash PhD is the Director of the RuralDevelopment and Management Centre-India.Worked as Senior Consultant of the IFFCOFoundation; Served the International Cooperative Alliance Regional Office for Asia andthe Pacific [ICA ROAP] since 1962 in variouscapacities and retired in 2002 as its Director;Served in Indonesia as Chief Technical Advisorof the ILO/UNDP Projects on Rural Cooperatives Management Development, Trainingand Education [1981-88]; Served in Sri Lanka asSenior Consultant to the ICA/Swedish Cooperative Teachers’ Training Project; Served asSenior Consultant on MAFF/JA-Zenchu/JICAsponsored Study Missions to Indonesia, Laos,Mongolia, Cambodia and Uzbekistan. He has tohis credit several books and articles. Has beenawarded Life-Time Achievement Award in Cooperatives-2012 by the World Peace Research andDevelopment Foundation, and, “National awardon Co-operative Development” given by BhuttiWeavers’ Co-operative Society Limited, Kullu,Himachal Pradesh, India.Correspondence: damanprakash@yahoo.co.in wemheuer@tu-berlin.deGabriele Wendorf, studied industrial engineeringand was awarded her PhD in economics in 1993.From 1997 to 2002 she held assistantprofessorship in the field of Industrial Economicsand Competitive Theory at the TechnischeUniversität Berlin. 2002 until 2007 she has beenhead of an interdisciplinary junior research teamconsidering the social-ecological potential of thehousing stock of the post war era. 2007-2008 shewas visiting professor in the field of architectureand urban development at TU Berlin. Since 2008she is Vice-president of the TU Berlin.Correspondence: vp3@tu-berlin.de6International Journal of Co-operative Management Volume 6 Number 2 September 2013

Co-operative - Journal:Layout 1 30/09/2013 10:21 Page 8EDITORIALEditorialIt is a great pleasure to welcome Richard Lang andDietmar Roessl as guest editors for this the thirteenthissue of the International Journal of Co-operativeManagement and to thank them for the painstakingefforts they have made to ensure a very high qualityacademic content with some excellent papers andresearch in the area of co-operative housing and itsgovernance – an area that had been neglected by thejournal up to now. In developing this importanttheme of The Governance of Co-operative Housing:Current Challenges and Future Perspectives theyhave drawn out some important conclusions andsummations in their guest editorial which need noelaboration from me here. It remains however for meto add my thanks to theirs to the reviewers andauthors of these outstanding theoretical and empiricalpapers and also to thank our other remainingdistinguished contributors to the journal.Daphne Rixons’ refereed paper is an importantempirical study from another previously neglectedarea as far as this journal is concerned, namely, thatof Co-operative Insurance. Daphne Rixons’ approachis entirely appropriate for a co-operative academic inthat she commences with the idea, not veryfashionable in today’s academy, of an externalmeasurable standard of ‘the good’, implied in thestatement of co-operative values and purpose. Herpaper focuses on the question of how far co-operativevalues translate into measurable reporting andaccounting in co-operatives? The paper provides thereader with an excellent review of the literature aswell as some revealing, if in part depressing,empirical results. The ‘elephant in the room’ whichis all but ignored in the literature reviewed byDaphne Rixon is that of ‘management culture andpractice’. Ian MacPhenon once said to me that it wasalways meant to be the case that the Principles shouldbe supplemented by operational priciples. Apart fromDavis and Donaldson (1998) there has been noattempt to articulate what is disctinctive about cooperative management. Davis (1995) criticised theICA Principles for not containing a principle of cooperative management. These challenges have beenwidely articulated in co-operative developmentcircles through the ILO Co-operative Branch, ICAHRD seminars, particularly in the Asia Pacific andAfrican Regions; and at WCCU and ACCUseminars, and via ICA’s former Latin AmericanProject Office. However, the fact remains that theDavis and Donaldson operational principles anddefinition have been largely ignored in the academicdiscussions of governance. Yet all the literature andRixon’s own research confirms Davis (1995)predicition that the prinpicles would be ignored inpractise by co-operative management. Rixon is surelycorrect in wanting to seek evidence in reported KeyPerformance Indicators of the Principles in action.Our final contributor to our ‘Practitioner Opinion’section Damen Prakesh is well-known amongst cooperative activists in the Asia Pacific region andbeyond for his tireless critical advocacy of cooperation. It was the radical neo-classical economistJaroslav Vanek who raised the question, “Given thatintuitively one sees co-operation as a fundamentallygood idea why is it that co-operatives generallyunder-perform?” In his pamphlets, consultancy andtraining program’s over many years DamenPrakesh has tried to answer the question byfearlessly pointing out the short comings in cooperative governance that he found in practice. Hisdiscussion of the Japanese Agricultural Sector,arguably the most effective in the region, providesan interesting example of a co-operative movementbased on very small farmer units. The importanceof member unity to gain control of down-streamhigh value added processes and distribution is oneof the valuable lessons his review points to.In the next issue the International Journal of Cooperative Management will focus on the UK Cooperative Bank crisis in the context of the overallcontinuing decline of the UK Consumer Movement.peter DavisEditor, September 2013Davis P. and Donaldson J. (2000) Survey of Sixteen BritishConsumer Societies, Journal of Co-operative Studies, No.99Davis P. and Donaldson J. (1998) Co-operative Management.A philosophy for business. New Harmony Press, CheltenhamDavis P. (1995) Co-operative Management and Co-operativePurpose: Values, Principles,and Objectives into the 21st Century.Discussion Papers in Management 95/1, University of LeicesterInternational Journal of Co-operative Management Volume 6 Number 2 September 20137

Co-operative - Journal:Layout 1 30/09/2013 10:21 Page 9GUEST EDITORIALThe Governance of Co-operative Housing: CurrentChallenges and Future PerspectivesRichard Lang and Dietmar RoesslThis special issue of IJCM is devoted to currentresearch on co-operative housing. There is arenewed political and academic interest in cooperative organisations as alternative providers ofaffordable housing in recent years. Although theconcept is widespread across the globe and has along tradition, co-operative housing practice islittle-known and is just being rediscovered as aninnovative alternative to property rental as ameans of coping with the increase in demand foraffordable housing following the housing crisis inmany countries (e.g. Bliss et al. 2013). The rolehousing co-operatives currently play in nationalhousing markets differs considerably as thefollowing indicative numbers demonstrate: InEstonia, housing co-operatives manage 60% ofthe country’s housing stock, while in Polandhousing co-operatives own 20%, and in Swedenand Norway about 15% of the total housing stock.In contrast, co-operative housing accounts for lessthan 1% of all homes in the UK, Canada and theUnited States (Moreau and Pittini 2012).Recent changes in the policy environment forsocial housing, such as increasing deregulationand liberalisation, have created new opportunitiesfor housing co-operatives but have also redefinedtheir societal role and organisational identity asmember-oriented housing providers. This calls fora reconceptualisation of the nature of governancein co-operative housing, similar to the work thathas recently been done in governance research onsocial housing (Mullins et al. 2012) as well as inthe research field of non-profit and civil societygovernance (Steen-Johnson et al. 2011).Co-operative housing initiatives often fill thegap left by the withdrawal of the state, not onlyin affordable housing provision but also in urbandevelopment, which increasingly involves themin processes of external, societal governance(Flint and Kearns 2006). The current political8interest in co-operative housing has been sparkedby the nature of its organisational governancemodel, which is said to have positive implicationsfor sustainable urban development (Beetz 2008).Positive external effects of co-operativegovernance practice are mainly seen in thestabilisation and even increasing attractiveness ofneighbourhoods through long-term investmentsin social relationships among residents, or in thephysical quality of their housing stocks. As theresidents make a financial and organizationalcommitment to their housing provider, they havea vested interest in keeping rents down andhousing quality up, which in turn generates spillover effects on the housing stock across the restof the city. Moreover, housing co-operativesengage residents in social entrepreneurship, civicengagement and democratic practices which formkey aspects of sustainability in urban development.Transformations in the policy context ofhousing, however, also cause changes to theorganizational level of co-operative governance.Cutbacks in public subsidies and the involvementin partnership agreements in and betweendifferent governance spaces (neighbourhoods,cities and regions) has led to stronger demandsfor accountability and control of co-operativeboards, not only to state bodies and for-profitorganisations but also to other third sectorproviders. Due to the changing competitiveenvironment in housing markets, corporategovernance models, with a stronger serviceorientation in member relations, have becomemore popular in social housing (Czischke 2009).Nevertheless, marketization and hybridizationtrends are contrasted by the emergence of newcommunity-led housing initiatives (such as theco-housing or community land trust movement)which have sprung up from different socialmovements, not always directly linked to the cooperative housing tradition but clearly exhibitingInternational Journal of Co-operative Management Volume 6 Number 2 September 2013

Co-operative - Journal:Layout 1 30/09/2013 10:21 Page 10GUEST EDITORIALco-operative principles in their governance(Somerville 2007; Moore and McKee 2012).The developments described above suggest thatthe analysis of co-operative housing governancecannot be reduced to the organizational spherealone but has to be enriched by an external,institutional perspective. We hope that this specialissue contributes to moving forward the agendaof conceptualizing co-operative governance withboth the organizational and the societalgovernance aspect in mind. Furthermore, thecomposition of papers in this issue presents agood illustration of the interdisciplinary nature ofresearch on co-operative housing governance,with scholars from different academicbackgrounds engaging in the debate.Furthermore, this special issue covers empiricalevidence from different geographical contexts –North America (1 paper), Africa (1 paper) andEurope (4 papers) – making the identification ofdifferences and similarities in current cooperativehousing practice possible, even on an intercontinental basis.The Contributions of this Special IssueThis special edition of the journal includes five,double blind peer-reviewed papers and oneresearch report dealing with the topic of housingco-operatives.In his refereed paper, Priemus explores theoverarching theme of a changing externalgovernance environment for social housing andwhat it means for organizational governance bydrawing on current developments and debates inThe Netherlands. Traditionally characterized bya unitary rental system, with a large share of thesocial rented sector (currently 31%), the countryhas recently adopted a more market drivenapproach to housing which challenges the currentgovernance practices of social housing providers,with housing associations being the mostprominent type. The author suggests that theintroduction of co-operative governance elementsin housing associations, particularly democraticmember control, as well as autonomy andindependence, could improve the position oftenants with modest incomes in an increasinglymarket oriented housing system. This leads to thequestion if such an approach could point the wayforward for other European countries with housingmarkets similar in structure to the Dutch one.Mändle takes his starting point from economictheory and introduces the concept of“externalities” to contextualize the governance ofhousing co-operatives within their immediateinstitutional environment. He comes to theconclusion that neo-classical approaches tohousing co-operatives’ externalities fall short offully grasping the concern for community whichis a distinctive feature of co-operative governance.Thus, the author suggests that game theory couldprovide further insights. He shows that housingco-operatives build a reputation as pioneeringinvestors based on the assumption that otherprotagonists actually know about theircharacteristics. This insight leads him torecommend the improvement of publicly spreadinformation on housing co-operatives.In their contribution, Minora, Mullins and Jonesmap a spectrum of community-based housinginitiatives in England and Italy. In contrast to thetraditional co-operative governance model, theseinitiatives can be more broadly described as ‘selforganising communities’, a relatively newphenomenon in housing. The authors begin theirresearch by questioning the now widespreadassumption that self-organisation is an effectiveand particularly sustainable approach to housing.They subsequently provide us with the conceptualmodel of “habitability” – related to Ostrom’stheory of the commons – for analyzing theinterplay of internal and external governanceelements in six paired qualitative case studies ofself-organisation. The analysis shows the coproductive nature of habitability displayed acrossall studied cases, which is the result of theinteraction between the ‘self-organisingcommunities’ and external actors who each bringin their own interests. The comparison of Italianand English cases highlights the types ofinstitutional options and support available for‘self-organis

issn gmjg –jngj the international journal of co 4operative management volume l number hseptember fgi thi si ue: the governance of co-operative housing: current challenges and future perspectives refereed papers: the future ofsocial housing: adutch case; the economics of housing co-operatives externalities governing for habitability: self-