Italian Community Co-operatives: Structuration of Community Development Processes in Italy

ABSTRACT

Italy is famous worldwide for its co-operative sector, and this firm model has proven to be efficacious in redressing many social inequalities over the past two centuries. This paper aims to examine how local communities in diverse regions have adapted this traditional form to the contemporary trend of bottom-up community development processes. Furthermore, the paper compares the Italian initiatives with the international literature on community co-operatives and assesses to which extend similarities and differences are viewable. The qualitative analysis considers 7 co-operatives in various areas of Italy, and analyses result from 15 semi-structured interviews with managers. Findings show the intense work undertaken before the co-operatives’ registration, the negotiation of purposes and objectives with external partners, how founder groups have a key role in determining each firm’s approach to local development, and how further networks with external subjects are deeply influence the co-operatives’ work.

KEYWORDS:

• Community enterprise
• community co-operative
• social economy
• socio-economic regeneration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Data.World at https://data.world/michele-bianchi/italian-community-co-operatives before you use this data please consult the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 In 2017, with the legislative decree n.117, the Italian Government defined the ‘Third sector’, its role and objectives in the society, and all the legal forms that compose it e.g. charity, association, social enterprise, foundation, committee.

2 In Italy, a national law is still under discussion, therefore there is no legal recognition of community co-operatives.

3 Local development plan ‘The community co-operative AnversiAmo’ presented to Fondo Sviluppo Confcooperative.

4 ‘Official agreement for the concession of tourist and sport structures of public property’ Mendatica Town Hall 8th March 2016.

5 www.catacombedinapoli.it.

6 www.coopcomunitamelpignano.it.

7 www.valledeicavalieri.it.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bianchi Michele

Dr Michele Bianchi is postdoc research at the University of Parma and currently involved in the EU Horizon 2020 MATILDE project.