Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

The course will rely on both theoretical content and work on case
studies.
The case study :
The “future of work” European Commission strategy now integrates
perspectives regarding professional activities embedded in what the
Commission identify as Social Economy:
A significant proportion of Europe's economy is intended to make
profits for people other than investors or owners. Known as the
‘social economy’, it includes cooperatives, mutual societies, nonprofit associations, foundations and social enterprises. They
operate a very broad number of commercial activities, provide a
wide range of products and services across the European single
market and generate millions of jobs. Social enterprises are also
the engine for social innovation.
The European Commission has launched a call for interest in order to
fund projects intended to support the development of European social
and solidarity economy (SSE) initiatives. Organisation applying to the
call must identify one SSE organization or a concrete alternative to
capitalism, they will partner with to foster their development. Together,
they present a co-designed strategic program:
- They delineate key aspects of their organisational and economic model,
highlighting strategic elements for their future development;
- Based on those elements, a Strategic Plan of Development is presented,
identifying clear objectives, and including an evaluation process;
- The implementation of the strategic plan must be detailed through a
Methodological Approach paper delineating the different phases,
activities and tools, and their articulation in a comprehensive program
addressing the general development of the SSE initiative as a whole.
The case studies will be done in-class but also through a survey / field
work.
These questions will be the basis to investigate economic and
management issues:
• What is really produced (directly / indirectly) by an organisation ?
• How can we assess social added value / social impact? What kind
of accountability?
• What about acting collectively? How can we rethink democracy
inside organizations?
• How can we analyse organisational networking (intercooperation)?
• What about varieties / pluralism of these activities? How to boost
this proximity (territorial) factors?

The courses offer knowledge on Social economy, commons and social innovation:
Concrete alternatives to capitalism

There will be lecture courses, mixed courses and flipped classroom.

Each group of students (3 students per group) will work on a real situation
which can be considered as a concrete alternative to capitalism.
Students are thus invited to choose an organization belonging to the social
economy area as a case study.

There will be an oral defence, a written report and a group project.

One case study, an organization part of social economy
area, a recommendation – intervention –accompaniment.

Indicative list of
lectures:
• Introduction Panorama and historical perspectives. Varieties of
the alternatives to global neoliberalism.
• Cooperative platforms.
• Mesoeconomic approach and power of the critics.
• Social Value added / Social Impact / Social utility.
• After these main lectures, team work will allow each group to
focus on a case study. We will supervise/coach the students at
different stages, in relation to their investigations and readings (on
social innovation, commoning, cooperative governance etc.).
• Viva presentations of the working groups, “as if” they were
consultants in the consulting coop.
• Conclusion.