An Australian university is tapping into millennial idealism and tackling a global blind spot with a specialist management programme focused on member-owned organisations.

The University of Newcastle¡¯s graduate certificate in cooperative management and organisation claims to be the only course of its kind in Australia, and one of just a handful in the English-speaking world. Morris Altman, the dean of the Newcastle Business School, said that although cooperatives and mutuals produced about 4?per cent of global gross domestic product ¨C and about double that proportion in some anglophone countries ¨C they were overlooked by business faculties and derided as the preserve of ¡°people who have ponytails and smoke marijuana¡±.

¡°They¡¯re [perceived as] organisations on the margins, not drivers of economic growth and development,¡± Professor Altman said. ¡°That¡¯s a misperception by people who run business schools and teach management, economics and law.

¡°When people are hired as CEOs of cooperatives, the first thing they think is, ¡®Let¡¯s demutualise because cooperatives are losers.¡¯ Why would you think demutualisation is a way forward if you appreciate the profitability, the efficiency, the effectiveness of cooperatives and mutuals?¡±

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Professor Altman said that cooperatives were prominent in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain¡¯s Basque region, playing an important role in agriculture, superannuation, banking, manufacturing and retail.

They are highly resilient business organisations, he said, which offer small enterprises the productivity benefits of scale. ¡°You can mimic a big company by creating a cooperative,¡± he said.

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Many co-ops offer in-house training schemes, but they are limited in scope. Newcastle¡¯s programme ¨C which can be completed part-time in six months, or rolled into a specialist MBA on cooperatives ¨C covers the international context, the legal environment and management approaches.

¡°If you run a co-op like you would run an investor-owned firm, you won¡¯t get the productivity and quality advantage of operating like a cooperative,¡± he said. ¡°Our programme is providing people with tools to understand and appreciate how to run a different type of successful business model.¡±

St?Mary¡¯s University in Halifax, Canada, also provides graduate diploma and master¡¯s programmes in cooperatives. In the UK, the Co-operative College, a Manchester-based educational charity, offers a postgraduate certificate accredited by Sheffield Hallam University and St?Mary¡¯s in Canada, and is introducing an MA next year in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University.

Professor Altman said that Newcastle hoped to explore joint offerings with other Australian universities. ¡°But right now, we¡¯re the only game in town. In spite of the fact that this sector produces billions and billions of dollars and services, and employs millions and millions of people, we¡¯re unique,¡± he said.

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Professor Altman said that he expected students to be attracted to the sector as they sought more ethical employment ¨C particularly in the wake of Australia¡¯s royal commission into banking, which has uncovered abuses such as routine charging of fees from dead people¡¯s estates.

¡°Co-ops aren¡¯t there to lose money, but they¡¯re not going to make money in the way that some of the private investor-owned banks work,¡± he said. ¡°Cooperatives are growing because people don¡¯t trust the big banks.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com