Cooperation, network, service. Innovation in outsourcing

This book presents the results of an historical study designed to reveal the reasons for the success of cooperation in Italy’s service sector. The study focuses on the thirty-year history of the National Consortium of Service Cooperatives (Consorzio Nazionale Servizi – CNS), a business organisation which with its network of 231 cooperatives and an annual turnover of almost 500 million euros, constitutes Italy’s leading facility management group. The reconstruction of the CNS’ history reveals an exemplary business model that centralises the elaboration of strategies and the definition of those principles of efficiency and mutual aid to which the member cooperatives have to adhere - albeit without surrendering their own decisional and organisational independence - and that encourages the expansion and growth of these cooperatives. The aforesaid success is undoubtedly due in part to the continuity between the values of the “founding fathers” and the current generation of cooperative managers, notwithstanding the generational gap that emerged as a result of the events of 1968. In fact, one main reason for the success of this model is its constant capacity to combine both business logic and cooperative ethics, with an injection of faith and of shared values that has helped overcome the identity crisis that for years overshadowed the entire Italian cooperative movement.