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Abstract

This short paper explores aspects of co-operative difference and co-operative advantage in the context of the 2008 ‘credit crunch’ and again as we face the social and economic pressure of COVID-19. Utilising the discourse surrounding the financial crisis, the paper looks at the questions raised about the continuing relevance of co-operative values and principles in creating effective and responsive organisations; the ‘natural’ place of co-operatives as inherently socially responsible and poses questions for possible areas of research to raise the profile of co-operative values in what some commentators are referring to as a ‘new economic age’ and the ‘new normal’.

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