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Four criteria are discussed as important conditions of successful applications in Computer Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW). They are equality, mutual influence, new competence, and double-level language. The criteria originate in the experience of the International Co-operative Movement. They are examined and illustrated with reference to eight contemporary CSCW applications: meeting scheduling and support; bargaining; co-authoring; co-ordination; planning; design support and collaborative design. Introduction Co-operative WorkingThe tradition of co-operative working can be traced back at least 5000 years to the Minoan civilisation. Coleman (1988) argues that it is largely co-extensive with the history of skilled work, being the organisational form of the artisan tradition. Its legacies include the Acropolis and the Coliseum, the Roman aquaduets and the Gothic Cathedrals -works for which there were neither blueprints nor architects. They were built from the ground up by co-operating teams of skilled masons who innovated and perfected as they went along (Gimpel 1983).The Industrial Revolution, and its organisational outgrowth of "scientific management" fragmented and destroyed much of this skill base; drove a wedge between "work" and "art"; and devalued the co-operative organisational form that passed skill (as opposed to "knowledge") between the generations.Ironically, the co-operative as a distinct organisational form was only defined when it was ceasing to be universal. The first recorded co-operatives of Woolwich corn millers in 1760 are often seen as the origin of the Co-operative Movement (Thornley 1981). It is more likely that they were an attempt to preserve a very general tradition of work into modern times. Since then, co-operatives have Double-Level Languages and Co-operative Working 35 waxed and waned. The best known are the Co-operative Retail Stores which originated with the Toad Lane shop founded by the Roehdale Pioneers in 1844.Worldwide, there are now some 750 000 co-operative societies, employing five hundred million men and women (UN 1987). There is a diversity of co-operative forms: production in workshops and factories, wholesale and retail stores, credit unions and banks, agricultural, "community", and fishing co-operatives. The organisation reflects the ambiguous stance of co-operation between the "social" and the "productive" aspects of people's lives. 1Despite the long history, the problem of co-ordinating disparate viewpoints in a democratic way has always taxed the ability and imagination of the International Co-operative Movement. Bernstein (1980);Fairclough (1986 Fairclough ( , 1987; Eceles (1981); Paton (1978); Robinson and Paton (1983); Blumenthal (1986); Stryjan (1987); Landry et al. (1986), and many other commentators on co-operatives have all found, in one way or another, that co-operatives cannot escape questions of power and inequality, although they may confront them more directly than other organisations. Problems of Co-operative Interaction Outside Co-opsBeyond the co-ope...

Studies of work and document flow in a German Ministry show that when documents cross organisational boundaries their status, and associated responsibilities change. These changes, trajectories, deadlines, are recorded on the document. WorkjZow, in this case, is not abstract, prespecified, independent, conceptually or physically separated from the artefact whose movement it controls. It is inscribed, developed, and updated on the artefact itself. This empirical fusion of workflow with objects has major advantages. It enables strong bureaucratic rules to be reconciled with local, ad-hoc, fine-grained contingencies and discretionary action. This is an important lesson for the design of organisational CSCW systems.

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