If you were to start a company today, would you do it alone, as a partnership, or as a cooperative?
CAIREPRO President Nello Tafuro opened his lecture at the University of Parma with this question, exploring the cooperative model and its organisational dynamics with students from the Business Administration course.
Founded in Reggio Emilia in 1947 as Europe’s first cooperative of intellectual professionals, CAIREPRO was presented as a case study to illustrate the evolution of a historic “startup”: a firm able to overcome the isolation of the individual professional through a multidisciplinary approach.
Cooperation was analysed as a business system: a balance in which the sharing of risks and expertise turns the collective into a solid and sustainable organisation.
“It was stimulating to discuss with the students how doing business today can — and should — be based on the awareness that a group can generate a strength that the individual alone cannot achieve.” — Architect Nello Tafuro.
Special thanks to Professor Luca Fornaciari for hosting CAIREPRO within his course, and to Legacoop for the invitation to take part in this opportunity for discussion and reflection.
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