Cooperatives in an Uncertain World

Michael Ambühl is the former Head of Negotiation and Conflict Management Chair at ETH Zurich, Switzerland and former director of the ETH Swiss School of Public Governance (SSPG). Dr. Ambühl’s teaching and research at ETH Zurich focus on the theoretical background of negotiation engineering, and on different technical and applied schools of thought in negotiation, mediation and conflict management. He has more than 30 years’ experience as a Swiss diplomat and negotiator. Stefano Brusoni has been a Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland since 2011. His current work focuses on analyzing the obstacles to innovation and change at both the individual and organizational level. The former area is, to a large extent, experimental in nature, while the latter is mainly field-based, involving collaboration with several organizations engaged in the so-called digital transformation. His research has led to several papers in various journals, and to the founding of two start-ups (Spark Works and Sparkademy). Anja Niedworok is a former external PhD student at the Department of Technology and Innovation Management at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. The focus of her thesis was on framing and reframing processes in the context of solving ill-structured problems in design thinking. In addition, she was responsible for the Innovation Department at the Chamber of Commerce in Tyrol. She is currently the group academic leader of the project “Cooperatives in a Changing World” at ETH Zurich and supports teams at hybrid and for-profit organizations in the initial phase of developing their business model. Martin Gutmann is a Professor of Management at the Lucerne School of Business, Lucene University of Applied Sciences and Arts and a Lecturer at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he is also a member of the research group “Cooperatives in a Changing World.” A historianby training, his research investigates how adopting a historical perspective can help solve contemporary challenges, including topics such as leadership, sustainability, and public policy. His most recent books are Before the UN Sustainable Development Goals: A Historical Companion (Oxford University Press, 2022) and The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership (Springer, 2023).

• Introduction.- The Swiss cooperatives then and now.- The Swiss cooperative landscape: A quantitative and qualitative overview.- Swiss cooperative law: Driver or obstacle to economic growth?.- Participation in participatory governance: cooperatives in a Swiss con-text.- A comparative history of cooperatives in Switzerland, 1800-2000.- The future of and with Swiss cooperatives.- Digital transformation and solidarity in cooperatives.- Reception and perspectives of experts and cooperative members on Austrian cooperatives during the Corona crisis - a qualitative and quantitative survey.- Changing the mindset: Cooperatives and Complexity. Looking into the Future.- Balancing Flexibility and Stability: Leveraging Cooperatives for Organizational Resilience.- Cooperative ecosystem: perspectives and challenges.-  Cooperatives and Grand Societal Challenges.- Collaborative responses to grand challenges: the case of La Scuola Open Source.- The evolution and evaluation of the Italian legislationon social cooperatives and social enterprises: facilitator or obstacle to their diffusion?.- Opportunity recognition and innovative solutions to societal challenges: the case of community cooperatives in Italy.- Is SwissCovid a Responsible Innovation for a Grand Societal Challenge? The Case for Better Deliberative Capacities in Innovation Governance.- The contribution of large cooperatives: data and examples from the World Cooperative Monitor.- Cooperative Approaches as a Way to Build Resilient Societies.- Understanding cooperatives from a Bourdieusian perspective.