WIRC people
Molly Scott Cato
Lecturer in Social Economy
Molly Scott Cato has worked at the Welsh Institute for Research into Cooperatives since 2002. She has a first degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford and later studied for an MSc with the Open University in social research methods. In 2001 Molly graduated with a PhD in economics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth; her book about a cooperative future for employment in the South Wales Valleys was published by the University of Wales Press in 2004.
Molly’s interest in the cooperative form of organising the economy grew out of her involvement in green politics and her wish to find an alternative way of arranging the production and distribution of goods and services that did not have a damaging effect on the planet and its people. Since joining WIRC she has been involved in the Coop Audit of Wales and in providing consultancy research for Wales Cooperative Centre on the issues of cooperative procurement, mutual housing, and the mutual organization of childcare services.
Molly has wide experience of public-speaking and media interviews. She spoke on a panel about the future of Europe at the Temple of Peace in May 2003, to a conference on alternatives to money in Hanover in July 2003, and to a conference on social investment in Montreal in November 2003. She has presented papers relating to the cooperative research at conferences in Liverpool and Glamorgan during 2004.
Dr Len Arthur
Senior Lecturer and Director of Research and Graduate Studies
Director, Welsh Institute for Research into Cooperatives
Originally a sociologist/social historian who ended up in a Business School via trade union studies. Academic and continued trade union work led to an interest in critical management studies. With the workers cooperative Tower Colliery on our doorstep it became clear that this was critical management in practice. Together with a number of colleagues that are the WIRC Research Group we started research at the Colliery in 2000.
Currently my research interest is rooted in workers cooperatives but also in the extent to which the social economy can be seen as a social movement. In this regard, recent thinking has moved toward the approach of 'new social movement' frameworks and the idea of socially produced space and boundaries acting both as democratic alternatives and being a challenge to the market and private ownership.
Russell Smith
Senior Lecturer in Economics
With other colleagues in the Business School, Russell helped in the establishment of the Welsh Institute for Research into Co-operatives [WIRC] in 2000. As a research-active member of WIRC, he has collaborated on a number of conference papers and publications arising out of research being undertaken at Tower Colliery, a worker owned co-operative in Hirwaun, South Wales as well as other projects and papers relating to the social economy in Wales. He is currently undertaking research commissioned by the Wales Cooperative Centre looking into the potential of the social economy for delivery of services. The sectors being investigated include housing, childcare, debt finance and care for the elderly.
Russell’s specific research interests include the social economy and economic regeneration, capital anchoring and the relevance and applicability of a “human firm” (Tomer 2001) framework for evaluating cooperative enterprises. The focus of the research into the social economy undertaken by WIRC also involves the unification of theory and practice across the social science disciplines.
Tom Keenoy
Senior Research Fellow
Tom Keenoy is a founding member of WIRC. He is based at the Management Centre, King’s College, University of London where he is a Reader in Management and Senior Research Fellow. His primary involvement in WIRC is through the ongoing research project on the worker-owned co-operative, Tower Colliery. He is particularly interested in the historical emergence of Tower and in how management is accomplished in the cooperative context. He has no hobbies but reads much of the night and would like to go south in the winter.