University–Industry Linkages in Agriculture: The Case of Palestine

The usual crisis mode of economic operations in Palestine intersects with the adverse consequences of COVID-19 and necessitates an innovative response to survive. This research builds on potential synergies between industry and university to expand the Palestinian agriculture sector resilience. We report on an explorative study that sought to understand the reality of the university–industry linkages (UILs) by considering information and experience gathered from 29 interviews in January 2020 and April 2021. Interviewees represent five key actor groups: farmers and agribusinesses, private institutions, universities, the Ministry of Agriculture, and NGOs. Content analysis revealed a nascent collaboration scope and uncovered the lack of a confident attitude among farmers towards agriculture research efforts, the poor communication performance, and misalignment of purpose. University actors need to encompass the UILs in their mission and touch farmers' needs by providing novelty evidence research. Yet, farmers and agribusinesses may take the initiative to communicate their problems and search for renovation. We developed a framework of underpinnings to enhance collaboration and a healthier agriculture sector. We suggest activating the cooperatives and diversifying farmers' income as deemed more resilient to face the pandemic.

Stakeholders' Involvement, Organizational Learning and Social Innovation: Factors for Strengthening the Resilience of Moroccan Cooperatives in the Post-COVID-19 Era

The Moroccan cooperative sector is increasingly important, not only in the social and economic fabric of Morocco, but also in the sustainable development of the Kingdom. With the advent of COVID, the cooperative sector offers more inclusive and sustainable economic alternatives than ever before. In this context, organizational resilience is essential to preserve the sustainability of cooperatives and anticipate potential crises. This study addresses the following issue: What are the organizational factors necessary to strengthen the organizational resilience of the Moroccan cooperative in the Fez-Meknes region in times of COVID-19 crisis? The purpose of this paper was to test the hypothesized relationships between a set of latent constructs (actor involvement and mobilization, organizational learning in times of a crisis and social innovation) and the organizational resilience of cooperatives in times of a COVID-19 crisis. The methodology adopted is structural equation modeling based on the PLS-SEM method under the "SmartPLS Version 3” used on data collected through a printed questionnaire administered to 160 cooperatives in the Fez-Meknes region. The results show the significant and positive influence between the exogenous constructs on the strengthening of organizational resilience of cooperatives as an endogenous construct. The novelty of the study lies in the identification of the organizational resources needed to strengthen the organizational resilience of cooperatives in the Moroccan context. The results show that organizational resilience depends on three selected organizational factors: stakeholder involvement and mobilization, organizational learning in the times of a crisis and social innovation.

Perspectives of agricultural cooperatives re-development after COVID 19 pandemic in Slovakia

The Covid 19 pandemic is a global, not only, health crisis with devasting impact on the world economy in general. These impacts are also visible more and more in food and agriculture sector as the main sector of population nourishment. In spite of adopted measures in many countries, spread of the virus is starting to distrupt the supply of agrofood products to markets and consumers, both within and across borders. Most major economies are expected to enter recession as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic, and the OECD has estimated that for each month the necessary containment measures continue the drop in output is equivalent to a decline in annual GDP growth up to 2 percentage points. How damaging these impacts tourn out to be for individual agricultural production of countries and agricultural cooperatives which are consider as the more viable during crisis is the objective of this paper.

Assessment of the financial condition of selected dairy cooperatives during the COVID-19 pandemic

The aim of the article is to present the financial condition of selected dairy cooperatives using ratio analysis and selected discriminant models. The main objective of the paper is to assess the overall financial condition of dairy cooperatives during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021) and earlier years (2017-2019). The author focused, on the one hand, on the assessment of the financial condition of a selected group and, on the other hand, on the link between the financial situation of selected dairy cooperatives and state aid during the changing economic reality caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus. The financial analysis for dairy cooperatives also reveals a broader comparative context in the time span before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research shows that the analysed dairy cooperatives, with the exception of OSM Jasienica Rosielna, did not have a negative financial results.

A Review of An Open World: How America Can Win the Contest for Twenty-First-Century Order by Rebecca Lissner and Mira Rapp-Hooper

The authors stress that both economic and military investments will be required to counter China's integration of statecraft and industry.1 It is further suggested that a selective procurement of allies within the Asian-Pacific region is necessary to counter Chinese economic dominance, military aggression, and coercive practices.2 An Open World suggests that the United States should look to build on existing relationships within trade and security cooperatives in the Indo-Pacific region and bolster the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, to become a formal alliance that projects a robust military presence to counter Chinese aggression and encroachment within the South China Sea. [...]the authors point out the current dearth of expertise, talent, and diplomatic finesse that exists within the United States Department of State. In November 2020, the four members participated in a joint naval exercise meant to improve sea readiness for their fleets.6 This exercise was followed by a virtual meeting the following March and the establishment of working groups to tackle challenges such as supply-chain resilience and COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution.7 If these working groups are the extent of the Quad's influence, then the United States needs to seek other alliances to combat China's aggressive economic and military tactics. Coupling public and private sector goals While this type of partnership with private firms is promising, the authors admit to the widening gap between the national security interests of the public sector and the industrial mission of private corporations, which seems to weaken their argument.

Technological and digital transformation in cooperatives in Antioquia

This article examines the innovative dynamics in technology and digital transformation of cooperatives in Antioquia in the present phase of globalization. This analysis was crossed by the Covid-19 pandemic, it addresses the elements required in cooperatives to adapt to the demands of technological and digital innovations during times of crisis. The methodology used was quantitative through a questionnaire sent electronically to 801 cooperative managers during the year 2020, and a response was obtained from 72 of them. According to the findings, it can be established that hypothesis H1: 0.70 of the cooperatives invest in technology to improve social performance, is not confirmed;therefore, the alternative hypothesis is the relevant one. In conclusion, cooperatives make technology investment decisions based on their internal operations (loyalty) and not on customer needs. In addition, few entities invested in digital technology during the crisis caused by Covid-19.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Women's Cooperatives in the Western Mediterranean

COVID-19 has emerged as a global pandemic affecting the whole world and has had unexpected and profound effects on socioeconomic life. In this situation where existing inequalities continue to increase each day, emerging evidence regarding the effects of COVID-19 indicates women's economic and productive lives to have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has had financially devastating effects on women's cooperatives, where women come together through cooperation and solidarity in order to improve their lives. As a result, women's cooperatives have had to slow down or even stop their business activities during the pandemic. This study aims to reveal how and the extent to which women's cooperatives have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, interviews were conducted with a total of nine participants at eight women's cooperatives in the Turkish provinces of Antalya, Burdur, and Isparta. The research analyzed the data that had been obtained through semi-structured interviews in the program MAXQDA 2020 and found the pandemic to have affected women's cooperatives financially the most. When examining the relationships the coded themes have with one another, those who were unable to receive financial support as a result of the transition to living at home due to the pandemic were found to have had their financial lives impacted and to have had difficulty accessing social benefits. Financial support and solidarity networks should be created for women's cooperatives during the pandemic, and social awareness toward the issues women's cooperatives experience should be increased.

Agri-food Cooperatives' Online Marketing: Evaluation of the Strategies Utilized by Spanish and UK Food Retailers Pre- and Post- COVID-19 Pandemic

El uso del Big Data por las grandes cadenas de alimentación está aumentando su poder de negociación frente al sector cooperativo productor agroalimentario. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo determinar el comportamiento en las redes sociales de los minoristas de alimentos que operan en España y el Reino Unido en las redes sociales, así como identificar cambios significativos antes y después de la pandemia de COVID-19. El estudio analiza los datos de Twitter de 16 minoristas de alimentos de los que se extrajo un total de 102.200 tweets válidos de sus cuentas oficiales. El análisis de contenido y de redes sociales mostró diferencias tanto en el comportamiento en Twitter de los supermercados del Reino Unido y de España, así como antes y durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Para las cooperativas agroalimentarias con poco poder de negociación en la cadena de suministro de productos frescos, el análisis de datos de redes sociales en internet es un factor clave para mejorar su posición competitiva. Estos hallazgos deberían ser valiosos para los científicos de datos y gerentes responsables de la formación de estrategias de las empresas agroalimentarias que tienen como clientes a grandes cadenas de alimentación. Finalmente, el estudio también confirma que, para las cooperativas agroalimentarias, el análisis de contenido de los tweets es una herramienta barata y útil para entender el comportamiento de sus clientes.Alternate :The use of big data by large food retailers is increasing their bargaining power against the agri-food cooperative sector. The aim of this study was to determine the social media behaviour of food retailers in Spain and the UK, and to identify significant changes pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. The study analysed Twitter data collected from 16 food retailers;a total of 102,200 valid tweets were extracted from their official Twitter accounts. A term frequency analysis and a social network analysis of food retailers' Twitter behaviour were carried out. The results obtained show differences for both UK and Spanish retailers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. For agri-food cooperatives with little bargaining power in the supply chain of fresh produce, data analysis is a key factor in improving their competitive positioning. These findings should be of value to data scientists as well as managers responsible for forming strategies in agri-food firms that have large food retailers as clients. Finally, the study also confirms that, for agri-food cooperatives, analysing tweet content is a cheap and useful tool for understanding customer behaviour.

From the Editor's Desk

[...]it is quite imperative for the Regulator to allow banks to consider NBFCs and MFIs as channel partners for lending to the people and informal enterprises who need small loans. Dr Arindam Bandhyopadhyay has given a comprehensive description of RBI's new capital adequacy norms that has paved a structured approach for strengthening urban cooperative banks, in his article "Prudential Norms on Capital Adequacy - Primary (Urban) Co-operative Banks (UCBs)". Prof Sanjay Basu has analysed the guidelines given by the RBI in its Master Circular on Basel III Capital Regulations, dated 1st April 2022, in his paper "Basel III Capital Regulation - A Brief Discussion " I am sure the readers will appreciate the perspectives shared by the contributors in the articles and appreciate the relevance of the same in the world of business today.

Co-op mode: the emancipatory potential of freelancer co-operatives in the UK videogames industry following the COVID-19 pandemic

With government-imposed lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one would expect the videogames industry to experience a windfall as locked-down individuals turn to games to fill the time. Despite successful profit margins for game studios, a multitude of issues have affected videogames freelancers, with this paper displaying how the pandemic has not been plain sailing for the industry. Informed by 31 interviews with freelancers and videogames practitioners, this paper adds to knowledge on the viability of worker co-operatives and how they offer hope to those workers looking for more emotional and financial security post-pandemic. The paper concludes by suggesting that although co-operatives provide alleviation for workers against a multitude of concerns, there needs to be more education, promotion and funding for co-ops to make them an accessible corporate structure. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Agriculture value chain sustainability during COVID-19: an emerging economy perspective

PurposeAgriculture value chains (AVCs) have experienced unprecedented disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic, with lockdowns and stringent social distancing restrictions making buying and selling behaviours complex and uncertain. This study aims provide a theoretical framework describing the stakeholder behaviours that arise in severely disrupted value chains, which give rise to inter-organisational initiatives that impact industry sustainability.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-methods approach is adopted, in which uncertainty theory and relational governance theory and structured interviews with 15 AVC stakeholders underpin the initial conceptual model. The framework is empirically validated via partial least squares structural equation modelling using data from an online survey of 185 AVC stakeholders based in India.FindingsThe findings reveal that buyer and supplier uncertainty created by the COVID-19 lockdowns gives rise to behaviours that encourage stakeholders to engage in relational governance initiatives. Progressive farmers and other AVC stakeholders welcome this improved information sharing, which encourages self-reliance that positively impacts agricultural productivity and sustainability.Practical implicationsThe new framework offers farmers and other stakeholders in developing nations possibilities to sustain their AVCs even in dire circumstances. In India, this also requires an enabling ecosystem to enhance smallholders' marketing power and help them take advantage of recent agricultural reforms.Originality/valueResearch is scarce into the impact of buyer and seller behaviour during extreme supply chain disruptions. This study applies relational governance and uncertainty theories, leading to a proposed risk aversion theory.

Putting Fairness into the Gig Economy: Delivery Cooperatives as Alternatives to Corporate Platforms

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, platform capitalism has expanded greatly in the delivery sector. The consolidation of an oligopoly controlled by a few corporate platforms has led to precarious working conditions for "gig economy” workers. Increasing protests and strikes have led to the reform of labour directives and to the emergence of alternative ways of organising work through platform cooperatives. This article examines how these emergent platform cooperatives are mobilised and their challenges and implications. Barcelona, the cradle of many platform economy and delivery sector start-ups, is a critical case for examining the recent birth of alternative delivery cooperatives. This article is informed by the cases of three cooperatives, organised by those working as riders, providing delivery services in the city of Barcelona: Mensakas, Les Mercedes, and 2GoDelivery. The paper shows how the embeddedness of these nascent platform cooperatives in favourable governance arrangements, a supportive social and solidarity movement, the knowledge and experience of workers, and the territory where the cooperatives are embedded are essential for their creation. This multi-layered embeddedness is necessary, but not sufficient, to explain how platform cooperatives thrive. The study concludes that the agency of platform workers, who triggered this transformation, was essential for the emergence of alternative ways of organising work in the platform economy. © 2023 by the authors.

ICT-Facilitated Coproduction during COVID-19: Intelligence Innovation of Community Governance in Guangzhouĝ

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, ICT-based technology application platforms have played a prominent role in promoting cooperative governance of community epidemic prevention, realizing cooperative supply of public services, and promoting resident participation. Starting from the definition, background and prospect of cooperative production, the study explores how public services can effectively promote collaborative governance through ICTs, combined with the popularization of ICT platforms and applications to promote citizens' ability to access information, participate in public affairs and participate in the development of ways. The practice of community cooperative governance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Guangzhou demonstrated how the city can ensure the development of community public management and services while coordinating the prevention and control of COVID-19 based on ICT-related information systems and technology platforms. Based on the application of ICT, the ability of citizens to participate in community public governance has been improved, and the mode of public service supply has been changed, and the pressure on community governance has been reduced through scientific and technological governance tools, so as to promote the cooperative production and participation of public governance to achieve the sharing of results and responsibilities, providing a new way for public governance in the future intelligent society. © 2022 ACM.

The assessment and improvement of the value chains and added value of agricultural commodities in the south of Libya: with a special emphasis on women's livelihoods

This report first describes the context of the agriculture sector in Libya and in the south of the country, the impact of the ongoing conflict in the country since 2011 and of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the specific configuration of the sectors in the south of the country. Secondly, it describes the main challenges in the value chains and added value of selected major crops cultivated in the south of Libya, providing an analysis and assessment of the cooperatives and associations in the region with significant involvement and participation of women. The value chains and added value have been evaluated and characterized for four crops (tomatoes, watermelons, mangos and dates). The study found the value chains of the assessed crops to be highly deficient, with almost no proper postharvest handling practices, and there is an almost total lack of added value. Surveys, interviews and studies in the region have identified three types of involvement of women in food and/or agriculture: (1) very few women are members of classical agricultural cooperatives;(2) some women are members of civil society organizations (CSOs) involved in agricultural and/or food activities;and (3) many individual women not associated with groups, associations and cooperatives perform some agricultural and/or food activities.

COLLABORATIVE HOUSING AND OLDER PERSONS

Increasing life expectancy has important consequences for the economic growth, the budgetary stability, the health care, the long-term care, the welfare, and the social cohesion. The current moment is crucial to strike a balance between sustainable solutions for the social safety net the reinforcement of solidarity and intergenerational justice, and the accessibility of decent housing adapted to the new needs of the elderly. The crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the loneliness of older people, to which health problems, unfavourable economic conditions, and lack of accessibility to housing are the major contributory factors. There are currently numerous initiatives that seek to organise housing (for the elderly or intergenerational). which we will address from the perspective of housing cooperatives or collaborative housing and financing proposals, with a special reference to the Valencian situation. © 2022 Malaysian Journal of Chemistry.All rights reserved.

The role of knowledge management and sharing in cooperatives practices toward National Economic Recovery in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

The National Economic Recovery (NER) Program is one of the responses initiated by the government in Indonesia's economic recovery due to the impact of COVID-19, the target is to reduce the activities of affected communities, including cooperatives. One of the priority aspects for the program to run well and smoothly is the role of institutions in knowledge management and process sharing. This paper examines the role of knowledge management and sharing in cooperatives with qualitative limitations at the knowledge process level, knowledge design level, strategic interaction level, social participation level, academic and scientific ecosystem level, and network and partnership level. A qualitative description becomes a research method with secondary data in the form of a comparison of cooperatives in 2019-2021 as a representation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 secondary data for 20 months from April 2020 to September 2022 in Indonesia dynamically also support sharpening the analysis. The source of cooperative data is from the publications of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, while the source of COVID-19 data comes from the publication of the COVID-19 Task Force. The analysis is carried out by building qualitative aspects into quantitative ones that can be formulated in the form of cooperative applications. The result is that the application of the knowledge process level, knowledge design level, strategic interaction level, social participation level, academic and scientific ecosystem level, and network and partnership level can improve decision-making, capture, share, and measure institutional knowledge for the success of the NER Program.

Community response to COVID-19: The case of rental housing cooperatives in Melbourne, Australia and Choluteca, Honduras.

COVID-19 and its restrictions have had widely documented negative impacts for private and social rental sectors, internationally. Limited evidence exists about how the pandemic effects were experienced in alternative forms of renting such as housing cooperatives. Rental cooperatives, recognised for their principles of democratic control, education and training and concern for community, may offer different outcomes for members than more individually-oriented rental forms. This paper seeks to explore whether and how COVID-19 was responded to within cooperative rental housing models, and if the pandemic posed a challenge to cooperative principles. Using a social practices approach, the analysis first identifies cooperative members' formal and informal responses to COVID-19, and second explores the meaning of such activities in the pandemic context in Australia and Honduras cooperatives. The continuity of usual housing cooperative practices and pandemic measures were analysed via in-depth interviews with 15 residents. Findings indicate that cooperative responses acted to reduce negative impacts of the pandemic or to find effective solutions. Rental housing cooperative residents' lived experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, invite us to reflect on the role of housing cooperatives in the housing sector, the importance of collaborative housing models and the relevance of housing-based community resilience.

Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracy: Algorithmic Nations, Data Sovereignty, Digital Rights, and Data Cooperatives

COVID-19 has hit citizens dramatically during 2020, not only creating a general risk-driven environment encompassing a wide array of economic vulnerabilities but also exposing them to pervasive digital risks, such as biosurveillance, misinformation, and e-democracy algorithmic threats. Over the course of the pandemic, a debate has emerged about the appropriate democratic and technopolitical response when governments use disease surveillance technologies to tackle the spread of COVID-19, pointing out the dichotomy between state-Leviathan cybercontrol and civil liberties. The COVID-19 pandemic has inevitably raised the need to resiliently and technopolitically respond to democratic threats that hyperconnected and highly virialised societies produce. In order to shed light on this debate, amidst this volume on "democratic deepening”, this chapter introduces the new term "postpandemic technopolitical democracy” as a way to figure out emerging forms and scales for developing democracy and citizen participation in hyperconnected and highly virialised postpandemic societies. Insofar as the digital layer cannot be detached from the current democratic challenges of the twenty-first century including neoliberalism, scales, civic engagement, and action research-driven co-production methodologies;this chapter suggests a democratic toolbox encompassing four intertwined factors including (i) the context characterised by the algorithmic nations, (ii) challenges stemming from data sovereignty, (iii) mobilisation seen from the digital rights perspective, and (iv) grassroots innovation embodied through data cooperatives. This chapter elucidates that in the absence of coordinated and interdependent strategies to claim digital rights and data sovereignty by algorithmic nations, on the one hand, big tech data-opolies and, on the other hand, the GDPR led by the European Commission might bound (negatively) and expand (positively) respectively, algorithmic nations' capacity to mitigate the negative side effects of the algorithmic disruption in Western democracies. © 2023, The Author(s).

Análisis del comportamiento de las cooperativas: de la Gran Recesión a la crisis del COVID-19

This is study is focused on Spanish cooperatives. The data span thirteen years (2008-2020). It includes the Great Recession, the upturn years that came after it, and the worst year of the COVID-19 crisis to date. The aim is to evaluate cooperatives' performance from the financial crisis to 2020. This aim is broken down into three specific objectives: i) To analyse the effects of the health crisis on the number of cooperatives and on employment within them. ii) To analyse changes in cooperatives' economic performance, represented by economic and financial profitability ratios. iii) To assess whether belonging to a given activity sector affects cooperatives' profitability. The results indicate that the 2008 crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic increased the pro-cyclical behaviour of cooperatives' employment. However, self-employment was less elastic than salaried employment. The profitability results show that the COVID-19 crisis did not consistently affect cooperatives' economic and financial ratios. Agri-food sector withstood the Great Recession and displayed a counter-cyclical behaviour in the pandemic year. © 2022 Universidad Complutense de Madrid. All rights reserved.

Performance of spanish cooperatives: from the Great Recession to the COVID-19 pandemic

This is study is focused on Spanish cooperatives. The data span thirteen years (2008-2020). It includes the Great Recession, the upturn years that came after it, and the worst year of the COVID-19 crisis to date. The aim is to evaluate cooperatives' performance from the financial crisis to 2020. This aim is broken down into three specific objectives: i) To analyse the effects of the health crisis on the number of cooperatives and on employment within them. ii) To analyse changes in cooperatives' economic performance, represented by economic and financial profitability ratios. iii) To assess whether belonging to a given activity sector affects cooperatives' profitability. The results indicate that the 2008 crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic increased the pro-cyclical behaviour of cooperatives' employment. However, self-employment was less elastic than salaried employment. The profitability results show that the COVID-19 crisis did not consistently affect cooperatives' economic and financial ratios. Agri-food sector withstood the Great Recession and displayed a counter-cyclical behaviour in the pandemic year.