Democratic ownership - Governance and Management in Cooperatives; Models and Supporting IT Systems

Strategic and business development models and related IT systems for Governance and Management are crucial for successful entrepreneurship. For new generations of cooperative and democratic entrepreneurs, existing models inadequately reflect their emphasis on social, democratic and environmental values.

This leaves cooperative entrepreneurs in a double bind: they either use models and systems that are not fit for purpose to structure and grow their businesses, putting their values and democratic governance at risk, or they prioritize their values and democratic practices, but forgo existing business models, thus losing critically important resources for developing and scaling their organization.