Participación institucional en la experiencia cooperativa de Mondragon. Diagnóstico, retos y estrategias

Abstract

The Mondragon Cooperative Experience (ECM) features a constant search of equilibrium between business efficiency and cooperative values. On the one hand, ECM represents a successful business model in a globalized and highly competitive environment. On the other hand, ECM grounds on a clear normative framework orienting its practice in the light of shared principles. Both dimensions rely on a productive tension for the ECM to advance its goal of creating a kind of firm more in consonance with worker’s legitimate aspirations. However, this relationship of mutual dependence between both dimensions of the ECM is under stress. In particular, ECM faces difficulties to promote a governance system capable of adequately responding to current economic challenges (a highly competitive and globalized market economy) while it sustains and develops an advanced system of democratic organization. Conclusions in this contribution synthesize the results of qualitative research conducted by the Institute of Cooperative Studies LANKI between 2011 and 2018 in ECM’s worker cooperatives. Through the analysis of the discourses, we observe some general trends and common problems that define the diagnosis, as well as several potential lines of improvement of the ECM governance system from the perspective of their members. In particular, this contribution accounts for the necessity to reconsider the participation of cooperative’s members and an opening to new definitions and practices of democracy and mutual compromise. Firstly, we shortly review the history and essential characteristics of ECM. Secondly, we analyze the challenges and proposals regarding the governance system of the ECM from the perspective of its members. Finally, we outline some conclusion we consider of interest in the governance system of the ECM as well as for other cooperatives operating in the social economy.