Agendas emergentes na pesquisa sobre cooperativismo no Brasil

Abstract

The cooperative principles emerged as a consequence of French and English liberalism in the 18th and 19th centuries, in which workers perceived reciprocal cooperation as a way of achieving better working conditions. Since then, cooperative organizations have gained strength, however, over the last few decades, the proportionality of cooperatives operating in the market, compared to other organizations, has decreased. Still, these organizations have a large representation, moving trillions of dollars annually. Scientific contributions on cooperativism therefore contribute to better practices and development for the area in social, economic and academic aspects. Thus, the purpose of this work was to investigate emerging agendas in research on cooperativism in Brazil. This is an exploratory investigation, which adopted two methodological approaches. Three Systematic Reviews and an ExploratoryDescriptive Study were developed. Through these methodologies, data were collected using the bibliometric technique on four platforms: Web of Science; Encontros da Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração; Revista de Gestão e Organizações Cooperativas; and Ciriec Journal of Public, Social and Cooperative Economy. After applying the filters and criteria, 406 articles on cooperativism published between 2008 and 2024 were selected for analysis. The works were classified according to their objects of study into five categories: Theoretical; Daily Life and Practices; Strategy; Social Factors; and Cooperative Types. The results showed little articulation between Brazilian researchers and the international research agenda on the topic. This suggests that research on cooperativism in Brazil is more aligned with pressing themes in Brazilian society. In addition, the main findings were that the category “Cooperative Types” registered a reduced representation in the international context, and intermediate in the national context. The “Social Factors” category showed increasing representation on the international agenda, and little at the national level. It is suggested that the category may receive more attention in the coming years, following external trends. The “Strategy” category maintained greater interest among researchers in all agendas. It is inferred that this situation is related to competitiveness, which would lead to a search for better strategies. The “Daily Life and Practices” category had the second highest number of publications and would also be related to the competitiveness factor, which would lead cooperatives to search for better practices and processes. The Theoretical research category was the one that received the least attention across all agendas. Finally, the amount of studies related to cooperativism in Brazil has shown growth and ends up contributing even more to the transformation of the research scenario.