The Community Company

The Community Company is a business model which was developed in the 1970s. [ [http://www.c4cnc.org/history.html Centre History ] ] It was distinguished from more conventional business models of the time by its lack of a rigid corporate boundary (facilitating the easy involvement of people at their chosen level) and its internal gift economy which was distinct from its exchanges with the external monetary economy. As an alternative to a hierarchical, top-down control system, it practiced what was called emergent decision-making, which required that those involved with the implementation of a decision should be involved in making the decision. The model rests on research into human personality carried out at the Centre for Human Communication.

The model was first publicly presented by Kevin Kingsland in his 1977 paper to the 1st European Conference of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, University College London entitled "You can tell a man by the company he creates". It was updated in the Kingsland K. and Kingsland V. paper presented in 1996 to 2nd ALPS Euroconference, University of Bologna entitled "The Enacted Company". [ [http://kevinkingsland.com/papers.htm papers ] ]

It was suggested that the Community Company satisfied the need for a more inclusive and sustainable way of working than was to be found in traditional business models. Many elements of the Community Company model can be seen in recent developments such as the social enterprise model and social business ventures such as the Grameen Bank with its system of self-help groups.

Examples

The first full example of a Community Company was Grael Associates Limited in 1973 which ran restaurants, sold wholefoods and published books. For example Hathapradipka [ [http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/2824797/used/Hathapradipika Hathapradipika : the means by which constant change may be transcended to reveal the eternal light of the self by Swami Svatmarama, Kevin Kingsland, Venika Kingsland (Used, New, Out-of-Print) - Alibris ] ] and the Glastonbury Zodiac [ [http://www.amazon.com/Glastonbury-zodiac-Key-mysteries-Britain/dp/0905982029 Amazon.com: The Glastonbury zodiac: Key to the mysteries of Britain: Mary Caine: Books ] ] were both printed and published by Grael Communications. Grael inspired and was followed by other companies such as The Whole Food Company Limited and Infoshare Limited in the 1980s.

Academic Interest

The application of the model in real life organisations stimulated significant interest from academics (Tan, 1978, Velge 1983) and the model was used in the small business start-up programme taught by Urbed [ [http://www.urbed.co.uk/ www.urbed.co.uk ] ] in the 1980s.

Notes

References

*Tan, Doreen (1978), Grael Associates Limited - The Community Company, City University Business School
*Kevin Kingsland (1977) You can tell a man by the company he creates. 1st European Conference of the Association for *Humanistic Psychology, University College London.
*Velge, Hubert L. (1983) Design and implementation of a Strategy for the Growth of an Unconventional Business, Bath University
*Kevin Kingsland and Venika Kingsland (1996) The Enacted Company as a solution to the technology/people trade-off problem.