The sustainability and political agency of social cooperatives in Italy during the great recession

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which social cooperatives in Italy\r\nfollowed and managed to preserve their core values and principles while withstanding multiple\r\npressures during the great recession. Attention is paid to two key issues. First, the concept of political\r\nagency is used to understand whether social cooperatives have been sensitive and committed to their\r\nrole as key political players in the sustainable development of the community in which they operate.\r\nA further issue addressed is the impact of the post-2008 crisis on the quality of work and employment\r\nin social cooperatives.\r\nDesign/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a mixed-method social research approach.\r\nIt integrates quantitative analysis of administrative data on business life cycle drawn from the Italian\r\nbusiness registers with empirical evidence collected via in-depth interviews and focus groups on a\r\nsample of managers of social cooperatives and representatives of social cooperative associations and\r\nconsortia.\r\nFindings – Findings suggest that the great recession and welfare state retrenchment have worsened\r\nthe quality of work and employment. Nonetheless, evidence produced through qualitative research also\r\nshows that social cooperatives have proved to be well suited to displaying political agency and acting\r\nas a key political player at local level.\r\nResearch limitations/implications – Results of field research are not generalizable.\r\nOriginality/value – Comparatively higher resilience of cooperatives, which is very much attributable\r\nto their specific rationale and mission, may come at a cost. The literature has largely missed\r\ninvestigating this cost, which can also be measured in terms of consistency with core values. Indeed,\r\nthe sustainability of cooperatives relates to economic indicators, such as employment and economic\r\nperformance, but also to the social, cultural and political dimension of the enterprise. In this regard, this\r\npaper investigates the extent to which, during the post-2008 crisis, cooperative enterprises managed to\r\npreserve the quality of work and employment and play a political role in the welfare system.