MULTI-STAKEHOLDER COOPERATIVES IN TENSIONS? A CASE STUDY OF A CULTURAL COOPERATIVE

Abstract

Our article examines the tensions and their management within multi-stakeholder cooperatives, by using the case study of a cultural center set up as a Community Interest Company (CIC).
Positioning ourselves within the literature that considers multi-stakeholder cooperatives (or CICs) as organizational spaces driven by multiple interdependent tensions, we observe how those tensions emerge with the implementation of cooperative principles: the heterogenization of stakeholders, the hybridization of the economic model, and the establishment of a democratic territorial project.
We characterize these tensions, which in our case crystallize in conflicts over the use of space. We identify the key role of tensions around belonging, confirming the importance of meaning and values within multi-stakeholder cooperatives. 

Finally, we point out that the tensions are resolved within the framework of adaptive governance, capable of setting up spaces for mediation, information sharing, and translation in order to enable deliberative functioning.