Facilitating organizational action regarding a co‐operative's governance system in a developing country using the viable systems model

Abstract

Studies in developing countries have demonstrated that co‐operatives have the potential to become an important economic factor. However, these studies have revealed deficient management practices that could hinder co‐operative's possibilities of playing this role in the economy. There are recurrent calls to study this issue and generate knowledge that could improve prospects for co‐operatives. This paper advances current research by applying an already tested methodology inspired on the viable systems model to provide a better understanding on co‐operatives' governance systems, in the context of developing countries. The results show positive evidence for how a participatory and facilitated systemic intervention could support the implementation of actions aiming to improve a co‐operative governance system. The approach and methodology used in the project represent a promising toolkit to work on governance systems within co‐operatives and provide new academic perspectives to address governance issues within these organizations.

Corporate viability and sustainability: A case study in a Mexican corporation

“…Under Espinosa and Walker's STM, the VSM is used as a metalanguage to facilitate systemic interventions looking to encourage organisational self‐transformations towards V&S. The authors suggest that for a firm to be sustainable, it must develop a recursive, adaptive and self‐regulated, context, to effectively deal with its niche's complexity, from the operational to the organisational levels. They offer multiple examples of STM's application in communities, co‐operatives, industries and governments, which help to identify generic CS functions that require development—at different levels of organisation—in order to more integrally and robustly implement CS strategy (Espinosa and Duque, 2018; Espinosa & Walker, 2013; Lowe et al, 2020; Martinez‐Lozada, 2019; Panagiotakopoulos, Espinosa and Walker, 2016).…”