Len Arthur
PhD in Employee Relations and HRM, University of Wales, Cardiff (Business School); PhD research in the South Wales labour and social history, University of Wales, Swansea; BA sociology and social history, Durham University.
Skills mobilised
Len Arthur combines a 30 year academic career in management, organisational analysis, sociology and social history, with direct experience of trade union and social movement organising. Over the last 6 years has concentrated his research interest into the social economy with particular reference to workers cooperatives. A founder member and Director of the UWIC research centre the Wales Institute for Research into Cooperatives (WIRC). This has enabled further development of research and applied policy for cooperatives and the social economy, at an academic level but also in relation to strategic and policy development for social economy organisations, development associations and for the National Assembly for Wales. A current key area of research is to link the process of democratic governance with economic and social regeneration through the concept of ‘capital anchoring’.
Relevant publications
· Arthur, L; Scott-Cato, M; Keenoy, T and Smith, R (2004) ‘People versus pounds: the prospects of radicalism in the UK social economy’. CRISES Innovation and Social Transformation Conference, University of Quebec at Montreal. To be published as a Chapter in a book based on the conference.
· Arthur, L; Scott-Cato, M and Smith, R. 'The Social Economy: Failure of Definition or a Definition of Failure?’ submitted to Review of Radical Political Economy.
· Arthur, L; Scott-Cato, M and Smith, R (2004) 'Developing an Operational Definition of the Social Economy', in Journal of Cooperative Studies, 36/3: 163-89.
· Arthur, L and Scott-Cato, M (2003).'Producer Cooperatives: Environmental and Capital Sustainability', presentation to the conference Securing the Future: Cooperative Approaches to the Sustainability Agenda, organised by the Wales Cooperative Centre and Cooperatives UK, County Hall, Cardiff, 24 October