Challenges and opportunities for the regeneration of multinational worker cooperatives: Lessons from the Mondragon Corporation—a case study of the Fagor Ederlan Group

Abstract

Organisations with alternative structures have been forced to grow internationally in order to remain competitive in the current global context. Some of the industrial cooperatives that belong to the Mondragon Corporation have since the 1990s followed internationalisation strategies that have increased their competitiveness, the number of their employees and their ability to create wealth. However, these moves have also called into question the founding nature of these enterprises. Recently, the Corporation itself has adopted a discourse based on strengthening workers’ participation in capitalist subsidiaries, but to date, the initiatives taken by its multinational cooperatives have been few and the results not particularly impressive. This article investigates this disconnect, delving into the problems of replicating the cooperative model in these subsidiaries and seeking solutions. It focuses on the case of Fagor Ederlan (Mondragon Corporation), examining the efforts to transform capitalist subsidiaries, especially the ‘cooperativisation’ of the Fagor subsidiary in Tafalla (Spain), which is the biggest regeneration project in Mondragon’s Industrial Division. This work also contributes to the broader field of organisational theory by analysing the tensions and opportunities for regeneration in worker-owned organisations under the current globalised context.