The State of Consumer Cooperatives: A bottom-up approach

This paper starts from the doubt about the continuity and the future of the consumer cooperatives. To do this, it carries out a statistical analysis of the evolution of the Social Economy and situates, within the VICA context,... [ view full abstract ]

This paper starts from the doubt about the continuity and the future of the consumer cooperatives. To do this, it carries out a statistical analysis of the evolution of the Social Economy and situates, within the VICA context, the consumer cooperatives, with a scalar perspective that allows having a territorial view of Andalusia, Spain and Europe. Based on the scientific inductive method (descriptive analysis), the research describes the evolution and the current situation of the consumer cooperatives, opening a debate about the first decline of these social enterprises. The main conclusions show a critical situation and a disconnection from the local scope. However, outside of quantitative, in social networks there is a strengthening of the values of consumer co-operatives that could open a new path of growth.