Environmental degradation due to human activity, the partial failure of dominant economic models and growing social inequalities has led what many are calling a crisis point in human history and these issues are only set to increase with projected population and consumption growth. This is the domain of sustainable development, for which the everyday term is 'sustainability' and whose aims are generally agreed to encompass environmental protection, social/worker justice and sustainable economic growth. However, sustainability is a nebulous concept with multiple and contested interpretations of its precise content and meaning, root causes and the actions that should be taken to facilitate humankind’s movement to a more sustainable footing to address this crisis (Connelly, 2007). Some point the rise and dominance of the shareholder/market-led economic model as being part of the cause and call for business organisations to change and operate as part of a new ‘green economy’ (Cato, 2012). Others suggest that freedom from the market as found within the co-operative business movement could play an important part in this transition (Cato, 2012; Novkovic & Webb, 2014). The co-operative movement has always been values-led with a set of guiding values and principles (including social commitment, democracy, and equality) and has recently turned its attention to more contemporary and normative notions of sustainability (ICA, 2013). To widen the sustainability economics research basis, there have been calls for more micro/individual-level research exploring how individual actors make decisions and make sense of the complex array of contested issues and their own personal ideologies (e.g. Baumgärtner & Quaas, 2010; Söderbaum, 2014). Current research into sustainability within co-operative businesses is mainly non-empirical positioning or survey-based and generally has a realist ontological basis and this research addresses the current gap.
The aim of this research is to explore how individuals in worker co-operatives make decisions about sustainability aims and co-operative values and principles (CVP) and what influences their decisions. The planned research is guided by a central open-ended question: How do workers experience decision-making about sustainability aims in light of CVPs in a worker co-operative? There are also three sub-questions. How do workers frame and make sense of sustainability aims and CVP? How do sustainability aims and CVP influence the day-to-day business decision-making of workers? How do workers reconcile sustainability aims and CVP when making business decisions? To address these research questions, the newly emerged and growing research approach of Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA; Smith et al, 2009) has been selected. IPA's suitability for this study stems from its requirements for rich data on a small number of individuals and exploration of how a phenomenon is experienced (sustainability decision-making in this case) in a situated and complex world. Subsequent hermeneutic analysis will add new knowledge in an interpretive paradigm. The IPA approach necessitates a small number of participants from a niche setting and worker co-operatives have been selected due to their owner-member status and strong economic democracy commitment, offering a potential interesting angle. This study will contribute to knowledge and literature on how individuals make sense of and balance social, human and environmental choices within an organisational setting. It will add to wider debates on organisational responsibility and how businesses can respond to sustainability issues. The more critical and underrepresented literature and knowledge base will also be added to, namely, the role of co-operative enterprises in countering the dominant neo-liberal socio-economic paradigm.
References:
Baumgärtner, S., & Quaas, M. (2010) What is sustainability economics? Ecological Economics, 69(3): 445-450.
Cato, M. S. (2012) The Green Economy: Why ownership and control matters. Journal of Co-operative Studies, 45(1): 61-68.
Connelly, S. (2007) Mapping sustainable development as a contested concept. Local Environment, 12(3): 259-278.
ICA (2013) Co-operatives and Sustainability: An Investigation into the Relationship. Geneva: International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). [Online] http://ica.coop/en/publications/2013-sustainability-scan-one-five-priorities-co-operative-decade (last accessed 23.11.14).
Novkovic, S. and Webb, T., eds. (2014) Co-operatives in a Post-Growth Era. Zed Books: London (Kindle Edition, downloaded 28.11.14)
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009) Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. Sage.
Söderbaum P. (2014) The Role of Economics and Democracy in Institutional Change for Sustainability. Sustainability, 6(5): 2755-2765.
Keywords: Sustainability, decision-making, green economy, worker co-operatives, interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA).
