ABSTRACT
This chapter studies some obstacles to successful strategic renewal in consumer co-operative organisations. It does so by investigating the economic and strategic development of the largest consumer co-operative society in Norway – Coop Øst (Coop East) – in the period from 1990 to 2014. During this period, Coop Øst failed to reap the economic benefits of a major – and largely successful – strategic change taking place in the national consumer co-operative movement, instead experiencing major economic losses as well as decline in market shares. The paper investigates what prevented Coop Øst from reaping the fruits of the same strategic changes which had laid the foundation for sustained competitiveness nationally, and what this discrepancy might mean for our understanding of strategic renewal as a tool to understand development and change in consumer cooperative organizations.
