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Cooperatives are the only institutions which are not profit making organizations but rather service organizations. Cooperatives are value-based organizations where employees, members and community lead a life of harmony. The cooperative values of democracy, equity, solidarity, etc. provide a strong foundation for building an ideal society. Communism failed in Eastern Europe earlier and capitalism is slowly failing in USA and Europe as their economy is melting down. Co-operatives are the only alternative for sustainable development. The sooner we adopt co-operative system, the better it would be.

In today’s context, cooperative principles and values are key factors in building a corporate model focused on trust avoiding conflict and promoting peaceful existence. Democratic control and governance system in cooperatives are linked to professional management. This helps in building networks of people and organizations based on responsibility and solidarity. This also links social responsibility towards the cooperative members with responsibility towards community at large.

The cooperative sector in general does not show commensurate result in the form of developed human resources and improved performance and productivity. There is also a serious problem of a large number of cooperatives that are sick/non-viable. By and large the cooperatives are weak organisations. Still they depend on government for their existence. Unless the cooperatives become financially strong and autonomous in character they cannot be effective and efficient organisations.

Cooperative movement can play a vital role in the alround improvement of the village life in the country. Cooperatives to succeed, need the participation of its members. Without the members participation no cooperative society can succeed. They must participate in the business, management and capital building of their society. Unless the members repay the loan regularly to their societies nothing is going to help a cooperative credit society. The cooperative leaders must try to inculcate this habit among the members of the society.

Cooperatives can create miracles if people learn to cooperative with each other. Values of cooperation are such that the cooperatives can even beat the multinationals. This is a fact which cannot be brushed aside. Cooperatives provide 100 million jobs world-wide which is 20 per cent more than the multinational companies. Over 800 million people of the world are the members of cooperatives. The ever changing dimensions of technological developments, customer expectations, quality consciousness coupled with the forces of globalization have necessitated a reoriention in the focus of the business organizations. Cooperatives are no exception to this. Now the time has come for cooperatives to play a key role as change agent in the emerging world of technological advancement.

The book, Cooperative Administration and Management: Text and Case Studies has been divided into five parts having 30 chapters. The study is analytical, scientific, systematic and documented. The chapters are supplemented with charts, case studied and tables to make the study comprehensive. It is hoped that all those who are interested in cooperatives would find it useful particularly students, academicians, trainees and administrators.