‘Alternative models of business needed’

Corporate Ireland needs to embrace alternative business models, including worker/ownership co-operatives, in order to move forward, according to one academic who claims we are 50 years behind competitor countries in regard to such thinking.

“In Ireland, we teach only one system of doing business — the capitalist one. We need to think of alternative models of economic development, where the focus is on long-term sustainable employment and development,” said Kathleen Lynch, professor of equality studies at UCD.

Professor Lynch was speaking ahead of a forum on alternative economic development being held at UCD’s Quinn School of Business today.

“The co-operative ownership model — whereby workers share in the decision-making process and in the risks, the profits and the benefits — is an internationally recognised way of enhancing employment that is both efficient and secure in the longer term,” according to Prof Lynch. “The most successful co-operative businesses are democratically controlled and have no massive salary divergences between those in senior positions and those at more junior levels. The combination of democratic control and limited wage differentials promotes sustainability.”

Prof Lynch said worker-owner models (already seen in Canada, France, Germany and the Basque region) deliver better and more secure employment for the local and national economies.

Also speaking is economist Jim Power, who, while open-minded on the subject, said, “We need a more diverse range of business models. However, co-operatives need to be professionally and prudently managed, as they are in many countries. Otherwise, they could prove as flawed as many aspects of the capitalist model.”