The Community Company - Operational Attributes

Operational Attributes

A paper presented to The City University Business School (Masters Programme 1982) identified the following attributes of a Community Company:

Employment. The community company does not have a hard boundary with people either employed or not employed. Rather, it has a fuzzy boundary with people becoming more or less involved through their own volitions. Involvement in day to day work changes over time as people move through different phases or episodes of life. This allows people to adjust their involvement through times of parenting, illness or concerns beyond the company for example.

Role evolution. Roles evolve continuously as individuals develop their capabilities and needs change in the company. Individual development is enhanced by and necessary for the development of the community company. The community company values individual development and supports it, allowing people to develop healthily even if it leads to the individual wishing to move away from the company. In this case, the individual is supported.

Authority is achieved by natural recognition of an individual's competence. Authority is distributed and authentic.

Decision making is achieved by emergent decision making processes. This is a clearly defined methodology that ensures that a decision which is made by the company can be carried out. Decisions are defined as precursors to action. There is no such thing as a decision that is not actioned.

Direction of the community company is achieved through a living evolving meta vision. This is a vision that allows each individual to work towards their own vision as part of the whole. The meta vision encompasses each person's vision. Should visions greatly diverge a new community company may be spun out.