Independent Research Project

The independent research project gives students the opportunity to apply what they learned in the program to their co-operative or credit union, or in the context of the co-operative sector more broadly.

Students design a project that matches their interests and leverages the knowledge they have gained throughout their Master’s program. Students are assigned a supervisor from our faculty body, leading thinkers from our practitioner graduates or other experts (from other universities or co-operative contexts). Leading up to this capstone project that occurs during the final winter term of the Master's program, students take a course in research and methodology to better consider what they would like to investigate and what approach would work best. This is a professional paper and not a thesis (i.e. previous research knowledge is not required). Original primary data collection is not required but is possible for those so inclined.

*This research project is not part of the Graduate Diploma program.

Research projects from former years include:

• Lean Management for Co-operatives, Co-operativism for Lean Professionals: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
• Values-Based Decision Making: The Benefits and Challenges Associated with Driving a Set of Organizational Values
• Exploring Worker Cooperatives Culture and Liberation
• Circular Economy Value Creation: A procurement approach for co-operative-to-co-operative trade and fair trade
• Co-operative Member Loyalty Formula
• Can financial industry disruption defeat financial co-operatives?
• Digital Transformation: Innovation in a Co-op Context
• Co-operative Strategic Analysis
• Internal Co-operative Education and Training for Succession
• Marketing the Co-operative Advantage to the Next Generation of Employees
• A Co-operative in Recovery: Winning with Corporate Social Responsibility
• Comparison of Management, Governance and Principled Leadership Between Small and Large Housing Co-operatives
• Co-operative Identity: Congruence or Incongruence
• The Challenges of Board Governance in a Worker Co-op
• Using Information Technology for Member Development