CF-BIZ-RELATED

Co-ops enjoying renaissance in the digital age

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 13:20:55 +0000

Co-ops enjoying renaissance in the digital age Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/07/2018 - 06:20

Lisa Marshall

A 1940s-era U.S. Department of Agriculture poster touts co-ops. In 2018, they're making a comeback.

Say the word “co-op” and you might conjure images of hippie health food stores and 1960s-era communal housing arrangements.

But in an age when employees and consumers are clamoring for more accountability from U.S. businesses, the old-school business model is enjoying a modern-day renaissance, with everyone from tech startups and ride-share companies to breweries and broadband providers exploring its benefits.

“At a moment of incredible polarization in the country, I believe this model is something that can bring people together,” says Nathan Schneider, an assistant professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI). “It connects the values of the left—of shared ownership and equity and democracy—with the values of the right around free enterprise.”

More than 200 representatives of co-ops, credit unions and employee stock ownership converged on the ��ֱ�� Boulder campus the week of Nov. 5 for the ��ֱ�� Shared Ownership Summit, a day-long celebration of co-ops (and similar business models) and the kick-start of several new initiatives to promote their growth. Leaders of legacy co-ops in the agriculture, electricity and credit union sector shared advice wth entrepreneurs wanting to develop co-ops for freelance writers, ride-share drivers, software developers and other members of the burgeoning gig economy.

And Howard Brodsky, founder of Cooperatives for a Better World, announced a new, state-specific online directory (��ֱ��.coop) to help consumers find co-ops and co-op members and employees find each other.

“Worldwide, there are more than a billion people who are active members of or employees of a co-op business, but these businesses don’t often work together across sectors,” says Brodsky. “��ֱ��.coop is the first to create a co-op community where members from a variety of co-ops can collaborate.”

Boulder-based Namaste Solar is a 100 percent employee-owned cooperative.

From farming co-ops to social media

As Schneider explains in his new book, “Everything for everyone: The radical tradition that is shaping the next economy,” co-ops are businesses in which those who participate are in charge. Often employees or users own a stake in the company and help make decisions.

“The business is accountable to those who use it. This is different than the investor-owned model we think of when we think of corporate America,” Schneider said.

During the Great Depression, rural homeowners came together to form electricity cooperatives across ��ֱ��, bringing power to areas where there was none by becoming owners and governors of their own utilities. For decades, farmers have organized into cooperatives to save money on supplies. Many 60s-era natural and organic food stores were formed by shoppers who wanted more control over what was on their shelves.

In the 2000s, companies like Boulder-based Namaste Solar, an employee-owned cooperative, and Fort Collins based New Belgium Brewing Company, which is 100 percent employee owned, began to embrace the model too.

Startup synergies

More recently, a new generation of entrepreneurs has gotten into the game.

“People in the start-up world are recognizing that we have major accountability problems and monopoly problems with the big tech companies—Facebook, Amazon, Google—and this model creates opportunities for a different kind of a tech,” Schneider says.

He notes that many of the people he followed for his previous book, which chronicled the Occupy Wall Street movement, have moved on to support the burgeoning shared-ownership movement.”

Nathan Schneider

“It was a way of surviving in the current, modern economy that seemed to align with their values—the idea that you can practice democracy while running a business,” he says.

Schneider envisions a day when the shared ownership model broadly extends to tech platforms such as Twitter, enabling users to have a stake and say in the company. Already, Airbnb is reportedly exploring the idea of letting hosts take some equity in the business.

And in ��ֱ��, entrepreneurial ideas are booming.

At the conference leaders of legacy co-ops in the agriculture, banking and power sectors mingled with young entrepreneurs launching co-ops for drivers, freelance writers and other members of the gig economy. One attendee is working to develop a co-op for saffron farmers in Afghanistan, to help them steer away from poppy farming. Another is launching a co-op for software designers.

“The day was a great success,” says Schneider, who sees the conference as a great start of an ongoing commitment to the shared ownership movement. “We want to signal to young upstart businesses that if they are interested in this model of doing business, our doors are open. We are here to help.”

[soundcloud width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/529506216&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"][/soundcloud]

More than 200 co-op members flocked to the ��ֱ�� Boulder campus in early November for a celebration of shared-ownership models and the launch of several new initiatives to support the co-op movement.

Off

Traditional

White

Corporate sustainability gets a boost from Leeds School of Business, B Lab partnership

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 16:57:55 +0000

Corporate sustainability gets a boost from Leeds School of Business, B Lab partnership Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/16/2018 - 10:57

Andrew Sorensen

Businesses looking to improve their social and environmental impacts will have an easier path to get there thanks to a partnership between the University of ��ֱ�� Boulder’s Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility (CESR) and B Lab. B Lab is a nonprofit that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good through B Corp Certification, administration of the B Impact Management programs and software, and advocacy for benefit corporation governance structure.

CESR, a center within the Leeds School of Business, will help B Lab map its B Impact Assessment, the tool that certifies companies as B Corps, to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs aim to address global challenges such as poverty, inequality and environmental degradation.

The B Impact Assessment is used by more than 60,000 businesses. It has over 1,000 indicators for companies to measure and improve their impact on workers, community, environment and customers. CESR will map those indicators to the targets underlying the U.N.’s SDGs, as well as the more than 1,500 indicators featured in the SDG Compass.

The SDG Compass is a database of existing SDG performance indicators that have been collected by the U.N. Global Compact, the Global Reporting Initiative and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

“This partnership with B Lab will create a tool to help companies positively impact some of the world’s biggest problems,” said Mark Meaney, CESR’s executive director. “We cannot accomplish the ambitious aims of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals without business.”

What's a B Corp?

Certified B Corporations (B Corps or B Corporations for short) are leaders of a global movement of people using business as a force for good.
There are over 2,600 Certified B Corps that meet the highest standards of responsible business.
B Corps measure and manage their social and environmental performance using the B Impact Assessment.
B Corps are certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.

Certified B Corporations meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. There are more than 2,600 B Corps around the globe.

“Aligning the B Impact Assessment and the Sustainable Development Goals is a natural fit—all companies looking to measure and manage their social and environmental performance should have an eye on the SDGs when they do it,” says Bart Houlahan, co-founder of B Lab. “CESR has been a leader in the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals in the academic community and we are excited to partner with them to advance this important work.”

CESR will be mapping the B Impact Assessment questions to the SDGs through December 2018. B Lab will then incorporate the mapping into the B Impact Assessment and develop an impact management platform module scheduled for launch at the beginning of 2020.

Businesses looking to improve their social and environmental impacts will soon have an easier path to get there.

Off

Traditional

White

Having a 'household chief financial officer' can ruin financial literacy

Anonymous — Wed, 09 May 2018 17:36:35 +0000

Having a 'household chief financial officer' can ruin financial literacy Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/09/2018 - 11:36

As couples mature together, they often grow apart in their level of interest and skill in handling their finances. A disparity in financial literacy that may be small or even nonexistent at first can increase over time depending on how much responsibility one partner undertakes, according to researchers at ��ֱ�� Boulder and The University of Texas at Austin.

Adults are often ignorant about the most basic facts about money, such as the effects of compound interest and inflation, or how long it will take to pay off a debt. Many times, financial education to reduce financial illiteracy is ineffective. Why?

The new research recently published in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that when it comes to skill in handling finances, people evolve—or stagnate—on a “need-to-know” basis, driven in large part by relationship roles.

“A lot of financial illiteracy comes from the fact that one member of a couple relies on his or her partner to handle the household finances,” said author John Lynch, director of the Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, which funded the study.

Key takeaways

Couples often establish a "household chief financial officer"
That may lead other partner to lose financial literacy, study shows
Gap in financial literacy gets worse over time

“We argue that people pay attention to what they need to know, when they need to know it,” said lead researcher Adrian F. Ward of UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business.

Lynch and Ward launched the study to better understand why so many Americans lack money know-how—and why financial education is so ineffective at solving this problem.

For couples, this critical “need to know” hinges on how partners use each other as external sources of expertise. The research shows that early in relationships, when couples assign the role of a “household CFO,” they unknowingly set each other on divergent paths—the responsible partner embracing and growing in financial knowledge over time, as the delegating partner’s financial ability and interest stagnates.

The study found that couples usually begin these paths on equal footing, and the partner who initially accepts financial responsibility has no greater financial experience, expertise, or aptitude than the one who does not.

But the longer couples stay together, the more the partner who is completing financial tasks grows in proficiency—even more so in households where that partner takes on a much larger share of these duties.

“We interpret our findings to say that the assignment of financial responsibility causes the two members of the couple to go on different trajectories for a lifetime,” Ward said. “The longer the relationship, the greater the gap in financial literacy between the household CFO and the non-CFO.”

Although such specialization is natural—even practical—researchers say that it could spell trouble for those who have delegated the financial role. In fact, the study found that partners with low financial responsibility actually decline in financial literacy over the years.

So after divorce or widowhood, when these partners are suddenly thrust into the financial driver’s seat, they may be unable to successfully navigate this domain. Indeed, when researchers asked them to make financial decisions or even read new financial information independently, they struggled.

Previous research has tried to explain financial ignorance by analyzing individual differences, such as personal interest or prior knowledge, but Ward says what consumers learn is best understood in a social context.

“Differences in what partners know, learn, and even notice are not just reflections of each individual’s idiosyncratic preferences, but are in fact created by the existence of the other person,” Ward said.

This article is re-purposed with permission from a University of Texas at Austin news release.

As couples mature together, they often grow apart in their level of skill in handling their finances based on which partner takes on more financial responsibility.

Off

Traditional

White

Minimum-wage hikes could push low-pay workers away

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 18:25:56 +0000

Minimum-wage hikes could push low-pay workers away Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/15/2017 - 12:25

Lisa Marshall

Low-wage workers tend to commute away from states that raise the minimum wage rather than toward them, according to a surprising new ��ֱ�� Boulder study that suggests wage-hiking initiatives could have unintended consequences for some they aim to help.

Workers rally to call for a $15 minimum wage. Photo courtesy: Fibonacci Blue

“It found that low-skilled workers are actually migrating away from minimum-wage increases in their own states,” said study author Terra McKinnish, a professor in the department of economics. “That’s a sign that these increases could be having negative effects on their job opportunities.”

The study, published in the journal Regional Science and Urban Economics in May, comes as dozens of states are either considering or have passed minimum-wage increases.

In November, Coloradans voted to raise the minimum wage from $8.30 to $9.30 per hour effective Jan. 1, and the state will incrementally raise it to $12 by January 2020. Arizona, Maine and Washington voters passed similar measures. Some advocacy groups have been calling for a federal minimum wage increase to as much as $15 per hour.

McKinnish said that while such efforts are well-intentioned, some economists worry they could also have a “disemployment effect.”

“By making low-skilled workers more expensive, there is the potential for employers to use fewer workers, switch to slightly higher-skilled workers or exchange capital technology—such as self-serve kiosks—for low skilled workers.”

A previous study, published in 2014 by ��ֱ�� economist Brian Cadena, found that immigrant workers are less likely to move to states that raise their minimum wages.

But some recent news reports have suggested anecdotally that the disemployment effect is minimal and that low-skilled workers commute from lower-paying states like Idaho and New Mexico, to states like Washington and ��ֱ�� with higher minimum wages. McKinnish, a labor economist, set out to empirically test which scenario is more likely.

“I wanted to find out: If a state increases their minimum wage relative to a neighboring state, does that make workers more or less likely to commute out of state?”

She looked at census data for 93 labor markets in 23 states where low-skilled workers commonly cross state borders for work. She assessed out-of-state commuting rates for low-wage (under $10 an hour) workers and a control group of moderate-wage workers ($10 to $13 an hour) in 2005 to 2008. She found “no evidence” that low-wage workers commuted at higher rates to neighboring states with a higher minimum wage.

Then she examined the data for 2010 to 2011 after a federal minimum wage increase to $7.25 an hour prompted many states to boost their minimum wage and lessened the differences between neighboring states.

“If low-wage workers were previously attracted to commute across state lines in order to receive a higher minimum wage, we would expect the rise in their own state’s minimum wage, relative to that of the neighbor’s, to reduce the rate of out-of-state commuting,” she said.

��ֱ�� labor economist Terra McKinnish

McKinnish found the opposite.

While moderate-wage workers were more inclined to stay in state, low-wage workers increasingly commuted out.

On average, a $1.50 increase in a state’s minimum wage corresponded to as much as a 50 percent increase in the number of low-wage workers commuting out.

Urban areas, where wages are already relatively high, might be less effected by such disemployment forces, McKinnish suspects, but rural areas could be hard hit. The larger the minimum-wage increase, the greater the impact, research suggests.

McKinnish hopes that as more states, municipalities and universities discuss living-wage initiatives, the research can help inform the discussion.

“This study is an argument to be more cautious and to thoughtfully weigh pros and cons,” she said. “If you raise the minimum wage, there are undoubtedly people whose wages will go up and who will benefit, but this and other papers suggest that there are also people who could be harmed, and those people will be the very lowest skilled people in the workforce. It is possible to legislate people out of a job.”

On average, a $1.50 increase in a state's minimum wage corresponded to as much as a 50 percent increase in the number of low-wage workers commuting out of state for employment, found a new study.

Off

Traditional

White

'The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone'

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 18:47:13 +0000

'The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone' Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/05/2017 - 12:47

People believe they know way more than they actually do. This is the basis of research in a new book co-authored by Leeds School Professor Philip Fernbach.

Off

Traditional

White