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The aim of this paper is to focus on one innovative way through which the European research is contributing to provide scientific evidence about actions that have been demonstrated to successfully reverse the closed cycle of inequality in which many citizens get caught.

The Communicative Methodology (CM) was applied, combining quantitative and qualitative methods and including the voices of all social agents involved.

Through the successful actions approach, the INCLUD‐ED project has identified five Successful Cooperativist Actions (SCAs) which have been proven to work in the current economy. Aiming at studying the transferability of the SCAs, the project has analysed how these actions are developed in the case of the Mondragon Corporation and La Estrella and La Milagrosa neighbourhoods of Albacete, the poorest neighbourhoods in Spain.

The CM promotes the inclusion of the social groups that are researched achieving results of high value for society. This article contributes with SCAs to economy and society, providing venues to overcoming social and economic exclusion.

Focusing on the role of the economic sector in tackling the different levels of inequalities from a multidisciplinary perspective, this paper addresses the diverse needs of the general public, scientists, as well as politicians. The implementation of SCAs has been demonstrated to improve different contexts contributing to the inclusive and sustainable growth.

A growing number of schools are now implementing quality management systems (QMS). As a result, studies are being conducted to assess the educational benefits of these systems and their capacity to identify areas for improvement in school processes and performance. The purpose the present study is to assess the impact of ISO:9001 implementation on teaching-learning processes in the classroom, and in schools with at least three years’ experience of applying this standard.

To this end, a questionnaire was administered to a final sample of 2,185 subjects from 80 pre-school, primary and secondary education schools in the regions of Madrid, Castile and León, Andalusia and Valencia (Spain).

The results show that ISO:9001 implementation yielded a higher than average impact on teaching-learning processes. Specifically, improvements were observed in the subdomains of tutorials, evaluation and classroom teaching methodologies as a result of implementing this QMS.

This impact was higher in state-subsidized private schools in Valencia and Andalusia with over nine years’ experience of ISO:9001 in schools with internal funding plans and in those with fewer than 29 teachers on the staff.

Quality management systems are being used more frequently in educational institutions, although their application has generated a certain amount of disagreement among education experts, who have at times questioned their suitability and usefulness for improving schools. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this discussion by providing additional knowledge on the effects in educational institutions of implementing quality management systems. Specifically, this study investigates teachers’ and managers’ perception of the impact that quality management systems have on one essential dimension of schools, the teaching–learning processes, with impact being understood as sustained medium- and long-term organisational change.

The responses were analysed and classified into a set of sub-dimensions linked to quality management processes in a total of 29 Spanish primary and secondary education schools that have used such systems for at least three years.

The results showed that, according to the respondents, the following sub-dimensions were improving as a result of implementing quality management plans: teaching and learning processes, the analysis of student results, tutoring, consideration of attitudes and values and assessment processes. Conversely, quality management systems did not seem to have a clear impact on the teaching methodologies used by teachers or on family involvement in student learning. In fact, the perceived impact in these sub-dimensions varied among teachers of public and private schools as well as when comparing different regional autonomous communities.

As the main objective of a school is to guarantee student learning, one of the essential purposes of school quality assurance systems is to perform all the activities aimed at ensuring high levels of student performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the process of becoming an entrepreneur in the cooperation and poverty contexts takes place.

This study adopted a phenomenological approach for data collection purposes. Autoscopy, which is a methodological device of reflective nature, was herein applied to a group of interlocutors comprising seven representatives of waste pickers’ cooperatives (RC). Data analysis focused on defining the meaning of participants’ speech was conducted in compliance with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis guidelines.

The current findings have shown that becoming a representative of cooperatives involves mobilization toward empowerment and a sense of collectively doing on behalf of community interests. Moreover, these RCs become entrepreneurs in the poverty context, as they perceive opportunities, are persistent and take risks pursuing alternatives for both the survival and improvement of theirs own living conditions, and of others.

Adopting a reflective approach associated with an ontology of becoming could have led to deeper results if the current research was a longitudinal study, rather than a cross-sectional one.

Training programs provided for waste pickers should take into consideration that their learning process is mainly based on practice.

Behaviors disclosed by participants toward fostering collective and entrepreneurial actions in the poverty context may be an inspiration for future changes.

The methodological option for adopting a reflective approach resulted in a contribution device that is barely applied to research in the management field; thus, the current investigation can introduce a new pathway for further research.

Globalization creates a turbulent, stressful environment for groups, organizations, and communities (cities, states, nations). With rapid communication, affordable long‐distance transportation and the opening of borders, every institution worldwide feels the strain of adapting to a rapidly changing environment. To survive and prosper, social systems (groups, organizations, communities) need to develop their capacities for rapid, adaptive responses. Analyzing studies of highly effective and stable teams, organizations, and communities through the lense of complexity theory suggests a common, parsimonious set of design principles for sustainable social systems.

The Mondragon cooperatives are the most thoroughly studied and well-known example of worker cooperatives in the world. Yet while there has been much discussion and wide recognition of the empirical growth of the Mondragon co-ops, there is substantial confusion about the lessons we can draw from this case in thinking about workplace democracy more broadly.

The normative and empirical literature on Mondragon is carefully analyzed to draw out the main implications from this case study for the broader issue of workplace democracy.

I contend that Mondragon teaches us two main lessons. First, that workplace democracy can indeed operate in a way that is economically sustainable and socially superior to conventional firms. Second, Mondragon sheds light on the question of whether co-ops are doomed to degenerate.

This paper advances our understanding and conceptualization of workplace democracy.

This paper provides practitioners with an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the world’s most successful cooperative network.

This paper provides insight into the practical feasibility and normative desirability of alternative organizations of workplaces in the form of worker cooperatives.

This paper will be of particular interest to scholars and activists interested in democratic alternatives to conventional hierarchical firms by illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the Mondragon cooperatives and drawing out the lessons that this specific yet influential example has for issues of workplace democracy more broadly.

The chapter introduces digital food hubs as disruptive business models in the agri-food system shifting away from the unsustainable industrialized and conventional food sector and moving toward a re-localized food and farming pattern. They are new digital business models developed to support small and mid-size farms with a value focus, forming new ways to leverage the technology as a facilitator for coopetitive organizational forms. Indeed, they respond to a competitive strategy constituted by a “value strategy” oriented to the production and distribution of “shared value.” Second, they are based on an “organizational strategy” that shifts from individual competition to “coopetition” through the development of local “strategic networks” among small size producers. Central to the development of these business models is the digital disruption that has offered the space for the creation of unconventional exchange and transaction mechanisms distinguishing them from the already existing traditional ways of work. The agri-food markets exhibit structural holes that impede small farms from connecting with local consumers. This is due to a lack of material infrastructures and organizational forms on behalf of small farms that cannot reach the consumers, as well as the concentration of power in the hands of a restricted numbers of distributors, which causes the unequal redistribution of the economic value and impedes small farms accessing the food market. The advent of the digital technology is reshaping the market relationship by allowing out centralized intermediaries and creating new bridges between producers and consumers.