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This policy brief calls for co-operative industry associations to implement policies that encourage co-operatives to embrace the SDGs in a way that reflects the co-operative difference. In particular, this brief explores why it is important for co-operatives to measure and report on the SDGs and to link the SDGs to the seven principles of co-operatives. We argue that reporting on the SDGs in the context of the seven principles enables co-operatives to illustrate their co-operative difference from investor-owned businesses (IOB) who are increasingly reporting on SDG performance. We identify key recommendations that are critical in facilitating co-operatives’ adoption of the SDGs and in reporting their performance relative to the SDGs and the seven principles.

This study aims to address the question of what coordination mechanism can be used for cultural production and, in particular, for the governance of music culture production. The authors locate their reflection within the specific institutional innovations introduced in Italy in 2017, focusing on the idea of shared administration and the public–private collaboration instituted in Trentino (a province located in northern Italy) in support of its cultural policy.

This study focusses on the Trentino’s music school system. This includes 13 organisations (musicians’ cooperatives as well as associations of musicians and students, plus one municipal school which do not overlap with the public school system). To analyse shared administration features, the authors rely on selected information from 50 interviews with Trentino Music Schools (TMS) teachers and administrators, and on the proceedings of the 1994 music school conference organised by the schools at the time when this novel educational system was created.

To offer an innovative educational service, the public actor (Provincia Autonoma di Trento [PAT]) and the schools (TMS) have developed a strong interdependence at the different levels of decision-making: PAT needs organisations that are sufficiently structured and organised to respect requirements of transparency and accountability, as well as educational standards, whereas TMS need public funding to maintain their service accessible for users, good labour conditions and be financially sustainable. Likewise, the success of TMS in educating thousands of students every year, including additional teaching programmes funded by PAT within general public schools, has contributed to decrease the exclusion from music education, raise interest in young people for music and fed enrolment in TMS as well as in the public schools related to the conservatoire filière. Conclusions emphasise the existence of a polycentric system of music culture production which needs to acknowledge the risk of being trapped in a static disequilibrium, while recognising change and the need to support and promote a culture of cooperation among schools and across layered institutional levels over time.

Further research can observe this system of cultural production over time, to appreciate changes and organisational tranformations, while introducing comparative analysis with other systems in different regions.

The relationship between the public and private sectors to design, organise and manage activities of collective interest (in the social, cultural, sporting and other fields) can increasingly become an effective and efficient alternative to the traditional bureaucratic as well as to the competitive method. For this to happen, however, all actors involved must be aware not only of areas of efficiency but also of inefficiency. To remedy the latter, corrective measures will have to be introduced. For example, fostering and improving “co-programmazione” and “co-progettazione” means giving all stakeholders involved the opportunity to actively participate. Should the number of participants increase, more discussion fora could be set up because one alone may not be sufficient to foster maximum involvement, to enhance different points of view, to allow for intersectoral and multidisciplinary interpretations and responses.

The system governance based on co-programming and co-design has allowed – despite limitations – to pursue educational purposes and thus well-being for the users, as well as for the teachers and the community as a whole. The continuity of this educational and cultural action has been guaranteed by the economic and financial sustainability of the schools, which is highly dependent on the public actor funding personnel costs, and in turn tied to the number of students (demand) attending each school. Actors embedded in the system need to build awareness of industry and cultural changes and knowledge of how to introduce more adaptive capacity. This points towards the need for strengthening networking capacity and collaboration among schools and other relevant stakeholders.

The case presented is a unique system of music culture production in Italy, and its governance has never been addressed by previous studies. It provides an application of shared administration to which public administrations and communities can learn to improve access to music culture and education. For public and private organisations to take advantage of the method of “co-programmazione” and “co-progettazione”, to make the production of a meritorious good more efficient and to favour its maximum accessibility, this study considers the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, or the areas of efficiency and inefficiency, for which new measures will have to be introduced.

The purpose of this scoping review is to analyse comparative studies on social-policy measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in Global North welfare states. The authors also consider the potential influence of the regimes on the responses.

The authors conducted a scoping review of six databases including peer-reviewed comparative studies. In an iterative process with exact inclusion criteria, the authors screened 699 titles/abstracts/articles and found 16 comparative research articles to be included in the review and analysis. The review summarises the main themes of the comparative articles and the articles' typical features.

The results show that social-policy measures were directed specifically at working-age people to minimise income loss and to save jobs. The pandemic also increased care-related responsibilities, necessitating the expansion of current policies and the implementation of new instruments. Despite the differences in responses between universalistic and residual welfare states, the influence of welfare regimes on COVID-19 social-policy measures remains unclear. The emergency responses in the different regimes varied widely in terms of coverage.

The results of this review provide a basis on which to conduct future studies, identify new research topics and knowledge gaps and inspire new research questions and hypotheses. Given the accumulation of scientific knowledge in the area of social-policy measures, the need for systematic reviews will grow in the future.

The authors identified three main themes: changes in employment protection, changes in care-related income protection and the potential influence of welfare-state regimes on COVID-19-related measures.

This viewpoint engages with Jem Bendell’s deep adaptation framework which was developed as a response to the threat of collapse. Proponents of deep adaptation argue that societal collapse is either likely, inevitable or already underway. The deep adaptation framework is employed as a tool to contemplate the necessary adaptation of tourism development and planning in a context of polycrisis leading to collapse.

This is a conceptual viewpoint article that is built on deductive analysis of recent events, reports and scientific findings. It employs the deep adaptation framework to analyse possible alternative tourism futures in the face of the threat of collapse.

Bendell’s framework included four aspects of response to the recognition of the threat of collapse: resilience, relinquishment, restoration and reconciliation. In this work, the deep adaptation framework is employed to analyse what a deep adaptation approach to tourism might offer for efforts in securing optimal social and ecological outcomes. Findings highlight damaging activities that we should relinquish, more resilient approaches that communities could encourage and restorative practices such as rewilding and pluriversal economies as protective measures. This work recommends a precautionary approach to transform tourism education, research and practice in order to secure better tourism futures.

This work is novel in engaging with the threat of future collapse and in using the deep adaptation framework to consider alternative tourism futures.

This research paper aims to explore the impact artisan cooperatives have upon women employed in Sub-Saharan Africa. Impacts were detailed using the theoretical framework of social capital theory to demonstrate the networks within artisan cooperatives that connect to greater opportunities for social and economic benefits.

A phenomenological approach was used for this study based upon the shared experiences of women who were leading artisan cooperatives in Sub-Saharan Africa. This study included semi-structured interviews over Zoom with Chief Entrepreneur Founders of artisan cooperatives located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Documents from the cooperatives were analyzed to triangulate the cooperatives’ current projects and efforts.

Three prevalent themes emerged: (1) key partnerships, (2) benefits of the cooperative and (3) change and growth among the women and communities. Empowerment was felt through both economic and social impacts upon the women.

This article captures the perspective of the Chief Entrepreneur Founders and their observations and experiences the women shared with them. Emic perspectives from the women who participate in the artisan cooperatives is the focus of future research.

These social enterprises serve as exemplary models for other cooperatives to provide dignified and sustainable work to impact the lives of women serving in these communities.

This study contributes research on social entrepreneurship within artisan cooperatives. It provides a baseline for further research on the artisan sector specifically for the sustainable development goals of gender equality, decent work and economic growth.

This study aims to identify the propensity for clients (legal and natural persons) to adopt peer-to-peer (P2P) short-term insurance policies as opposed to traditional and/or centralized short-term.

In this paper data was collected through a survey of 102 sampled short-term insurance clients using convenience sampling. The TAM2 questionnaire was adapted to evaluate the intention to adopt a P2P insurance policy.

The findings of this study shed light on the factors influencing the adoption and (dis)continuation of short-term insurance products, both traditional and digital, among South African consumers. The results demonstrate that perceived usefulness, ease of use, trust, risk perception and subjective norm play crucial roles in individuals' intention to use or (dis)continue the use of these insurance products.

The study's findings provide actionable insights for practitioners in the short-term insurance sector, with a focus on marketers and e-commerce professionals. These insights emphasize the need to prioritize user-friendly design and trust-building measures in the development of P2P insurance systems. Additionally, practitioners should consider harnessing the power of social influence and carefully balancing innovative features with familiarity in their marketing efforts. These strategies are poised to enhance the adoption and competitive positioning of P2P insurance solutions amidst the evolving landscape of digital transformation.

This study makes a substantial contribution by employing the technology acceptance model (TAM) in a novel and unconventional manner. It not only explicates the intricate dynamics governing the adoption and discontinuation of short-term insurance products, encompassing both conventional and digital alternatives, within the South African consumer milieu but also extends its purview to infer the reasons behind the limited widespread adoption of the digital counterpart, despite its superior value proposition compared to the traditional offering. The findings elucidate the critical determinants shaping individuals' decisions in this dynamic market segment. This research enhances the global discourse on insurance adoption with a unique South African perspective and furnishes insurers and marketers with empirically grounded insights to optimize their strategies and cultivate substantive connections with their target demographic.

The paper traces the development of employee ownership in the UK since the 1980s. It proposes that employee ownership is a function of macro-level contexts and micro-level decisions, with the latter framed and guided by the former. The macro context comprises the regulatory framework and the provision of incentives to adopt employee ownership. The paper shows how the evolution of these has led to a steep increase in employee ownership in the last eight years.

The paper draws on several sources of empirical data to chart the development of employee ownership in the UK since the 1980s and to identify the current features of employee ownership. Two firm-level surveys conducted in 2015 and 2020/21 are supplemented by qualitative case study data collected in the early 1990s. An annual census of all employee-owned firms facilitates a comprehensive overview of the current state of UK employee ownership.

It is found that there has been a steep increase in the number of UK employee-owned firms since 2014 after several decades of uneven growth. This is attributed to the introduction of new incentives and to refinements of the regulatory framework. Over the period, there has been a shift from hybrid employee ownership, combining direct and indirect forms, to indirect ownership associated with the employee ownership trust model.

The paper provides an original history of employee ownership in the UK using rich and unique data, along with the most comprehensive picture of current employee ownership to date.

In Italy, worker cooperatives (WCs), whose workers hold major control rights over collectively-owned assets, are the leading vehicle for the promotion and development of employee ownership. Worker cooperatives are present in all regions and in most economic sectors, employing about 506,000 workers and generating a turnover of about €22 bn. Despite their history and diffusion, the high prevalence of WCs in Italy is under-researched and -thematised and requires new research.

The paper leverages unpublished primary and secondary data from Centro Studi Legacoop databank, the Aida-Bureau Van Dijk databank and the Cooperative Registry of the Ministry of Economic Development (CRMED) to explain the spread of WCs in Italy.

This paper reveals descriptive statistics of WCs and investigates their distribution across economic sectors and regions, their economic and financial performance and gives an overview of the relevant legislation. The paper indicates that older small- and medium-sized cooperatives located in central and north-eastern Italy perform best economically. However, in recent years, an increasing number of young cooperatives has emerged in South Italy thanks to favourable legislation, cooperative finance and the diffusion of cooperative know-how. Limitations to such results are reported in the conclusions.

The paper sheds light on past and recent development trends of WCs in Italy, highlights their growth in South Italy and revitalises the debate on the drivers, structures and rationales of employee-owned enterprises in Italy. Findings generate implications for research and practice. Given the tendency of WCs to better protect jobs than investor-owned enterprises, the spread of these enterprises may help workers find better and more stable jobs, counter-cyclically mitigating the dangerous effects of macro- and meso-economic fluctuations and instability.

This study explores how a small minority of social entrepreneurs break free from third sector constraints to conceive, create and grow non-profit organisations that generate social value at scale in new and innovative ways.

Six narrative case histories of innovative social enterprises were developed based on documents and semi-structured interviews with founders and long serving executives. Data were coded “chrono-processually”, which involves locating thoughts, events and actions in distinct time periods (temporal bracketing) and identifying the processes at work in establishing new social ventures.

This study presents two core findings. First, the paper demonstrates how successful social entrepreneurs draw on their lived experiences, private and professional, in driving the development and implementation of social innovations, which are realised through application of their capabilities as analysts, strategists and resources mobilisers. These capabilities are bolstered by personal legitimacy and by their abilities as storytellers and rhetoricians. Second, the study unravels the complex processes of social entrepreneurship by revealing how sensemaking, theorising, strategizing and sensegiving underpin the core processes of problem specification, the formulation of theories of change, development of new business models and the implementation of social innovations.

The study demonstrates how social entrepreneurs use sensemaking and sensegiving strategies to understand and address complex social problems, revealing how successful social entrepreneurs devise and disseminate social innovations that substantially add value to society and bring about beneficial social change. A novel process-outcome model of social innovation is presented illustrating the interconnections between entrepreneurial cognition and strategic action.

This study aims to examine the role of supplier selection and supplier monitoring in public procurement efficiency in terms of cost reduction in Tanzania.

A structured questionnaire was used to collect cross-sectional survey data from 179 public procuring entities in Tanzania. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the collected data.

The findings revealed that supplier selection and supplier monitoring are positive and significant predictors of public procurement efficiency in terms of cost reduction.

This study was conducted in Tanzanian public procurement contexts, so generalisations should be made with caution. Also, this study collected cross-sectional data; other studies may consider longitudinal data.

This study provides procurement practitioners with insights into selecting the proper suppliers and embracing supplier monitoring to achieve procurement efficiency in terms of cost reduction.

This study examines the effects of supplier selection and supplier monitoring on procurement cost reduction as a measure of public procurement efficiency in the Tanzanian context. Consequently, it provides empirical evidence of supplier management practices in the public procurement context.