Olive Mccarthy

Biography

Olive McCarthy BComm, MSc, PhD, PG Cert TL, is a senior lecturer with the Department of Food Business and Development and a researcher with the Centre for Co-operative Studies, UCC. Research interests include organisation and management issues, stakeholder participation in co-operatives, and performance measurement. Her research has been conducted mainly into credit unions and the role of co-operatives in agriculture and food, on which she has published widely. She is deputy editor for Ireland of the Journal of Co-operative Studies and holds positions on the editorial boards of several other academic journals. She was appointed to the Research Advisory Board of the Centre for Community Finance Europe in 2017. She is the academic director of the MSc in Co-operative and Social Enterprise by online learning and is also involved in the delivery the Credit Union Pathways Programme - 5 undergraduate programmes aimed at meeting the training and educational needs of all those involved with credit unions. She won the student-nominated 'Outstanding Lecturer Award' in the UCC College of Science Engineering and Food Science (SEFS) in June 2013. She also won a President's Award for Excellence in Teaching in October 2014.

Research Interest

Most of Olive's research to date has been focussed on credit unions and other forms of co-operative, although credit unions have undoubtedly been the primary focus of my work. The credit union research has also enabled me to diversify my research portfolio to conduct research on related issues, such as financial exclusion, moneylending and micro-credit. My interest in co-operative structures in general has ensured that I am not confined to credit union research and has enabled me to examine a variety of other topics, such as community co-operatives and farmers’ markets. Olive's research strategy focuses on conducting and widely disseminating research that is of real value to the end-user, be that a senior policy-maker at government level, an academic in the same or a related discipline, a practitioner in a co-operative, and so on. Being a practitioner in the co-operative field myself, as well as being an academic in the discipline, has been essential in maintaining direct understanding and awareness of the main issues in the field and has brought added value to my research. The main principles I espouse in my research are: currency – that the research addresses issues which are relevant and topical; validity – that the research methodology is sound, appropriate and ethical; usefulness – that the research is useful to the end user; and readability – that the final report, paper etc is written in a style that is accessible to the end user. I am interested in exploratory research that requires more qualitative methodologies which involve the end users. I prefer direct contact with the subjects of the research, through interviews, focus groups, case studies, etc. and favour exploring relationships, themes, patterns etc. The majority of my research has focussed on various aspects of credit unions: member participation, member representation, organisational structures, performance measurement and management, innovation, governance and development. I have published and presented widely in this area. Most of my research output is available on-line and/or through journals and books. Many scholars undertaking research in credit unions make contact with me for assistance or further information, particularly as there is considerable interest globally in the Irish credit union movement. A lot of my work in this area has been conducted jointly, with colleagues or other national and international collaborators. Along with my colleagues, she have strong links into the main credit union and co-operative organisations in Ireland and with fellow researchers throughout the world. She is regularly invited to participate in co-operative research activities – joint research undertakings, conferences, meetings, editorships and so on. She has served on a number of national credit union and co-operative committees, such as the Irish League of Credit Unions’ Youth Policy Task Force, the Irish League of Credit Unions’ Rationalisation Committee, the National Steering Committee on Social Finance, the Irish League of Credit Unions' Review Steering Group and the Udaras na Gaeltachta Committee on Co-operatives. Other evidence of the impact She had on my discipline include the invitation by the Minister for Finance to act on the 7-person Credit Union Advisory Committee (CUAC) which advises him/her on credit union issues and the invitation to become one of 15 members of the CIRIEC* International Scientific Commission on the Social and Co-operative Economy. * International Centre of Research and Information on the Collective Economy