ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role played by strategical renewal in shaping consumer co-operatives over the past decades. As stated by the ICA (International Cooperative Alliance), a co-operative ‘is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations’. Consequently, it pursues both economic and social/cultural goals. This duality has influenced strategies, organizational models and identity values. The chapter investigates how the Italian consumer co-operatives met the dual needs of its members, through the lens of strategical renewal. After the Second World War, in a country that was returning to democracy, the Italian co-operative movement rebuilt itself on the basis of the ideologies that had supported the struggle against dictatorship and liberation from Nazi occupation. The building of a successful co-operative group also required the recruitment or internal training of managerial capabilities.
