The Spanish version of this paper can be found at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1950560This working paper presents the case of the Italian region of Trentino, one of the areas in Europe with the highest concentration of cooperative businesses. The cooperative system that developed in this border region has reacted to a series of events over the course of its 120 years of history that have radically and repeatedly modified the institutional and economic context, demonstrating notable versatility. This characteristic is analysed here in reference, on the one hand, to the capacity to respond to changes in the context as a fundamental element of local development, and on the other hand as an element of reflection for a theory of entrepreneurial pluralism as the nucleus of a strategy to respond to the crisis in the classic industrial model based on large capitalistic firms.