1. A Student’s Experience at Mondragón
By: Musonda Yamfwa
Recently I was part of a study tour group that travelled to Mondragón, Spain from May 31st
to
June 9th
, 2016. This is an integral part of the Masters of Management of Co-operatives and
Credit Unions program at the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax, NS).
The program provides the opportunity for students to learn from co-operative economies in
Mondragón, Spain or Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
The 2016 International Study Tour Group travelled to Mondragón to learn from the world’s
largest worker cooperative -- Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (MCC). Father José María
Arizmendiarrieta, a Catholic priest and founder of the Mondragón cooperative movement in the
Basque Country, was a driving force, leader and long-term visionary that played a significant role
in the growth and development of the Mondragon Group. The town of Mondragón benefited
from such strong business and positive community contributions by the cooperative. Father
Arizmendiarrieta’s main ideas included dignity of the individual; solidarity; sense of work (tied to
the Basque Culture of Northern Spain) and education. To date, the Mondragon group has 103
independent co-operatives and 150 non-cooperative companies with a total of 70,000 workers.
The weeks prior to the tour began with intensive readings and discussions on topics ranging
from the governance model, membership engagement, internationalization, innovation,
adaptability to various changing external factors and the resilience of the co-operative model.
The pre-tour prep work was meant to best prepare students for the study tour. I must hasten to
add that the tour brought forth a remarkable change in perspective and provided a better
understanding of MCC which was a life changing experience.
MCC is the umbrella or cornerstone of several independent co-operatives that comprises of
industrial, retail, innovative, and financial sectors. They are well organized and often surpass
their immediate competitors in terms of business operations and client satisfaction. As well, the
cooperative has a solid social welfare system whose objectives include job retention/relocation
and pension funds for their worker-owner employees.
The sessions during the trip were very diverse and provided various insights into the multi-
sectoral worker co-operative group. Internally, the structure of MCC emphasizes the direct link
of success and losses of the co-operative are shared amongst all the workers. Employees at all
levels are empowered to be active members of the organization as they share a responsibility of
being both worker and owner of MCC. Through the democratic structure, the group bases their
business decisions from a long-term perspective and sustaining jobs in Mondragón.
Aside from maintaining strong connection to their co-operative roots, MCC is also subject to
external challenges as competition grows on a local and global scale. There were some recurring
challenges mentioned throughout the week that I believe show that even a strong co-operative
such as Mondragón cannot ignore things such as: globalization, technological advances,
sustainability, participation, governance, and potential of loss of expertise/co-operative leaders.
These realities can have an impact on the organization. When facing such challenges, it is
important to bear in mind that these external challenges can also be opportunities where re-

2. evaluation can be done internally so as to continuously perform in a manner that exemplifies
the co-operative values and principles.
Historically, the Mondragón Group has faced and endured economic shifts that have tested the
co-operative resilience of the members and has overcome these obstacles through innovation.
The strong ties that members have towards their values and principles have allowed the
organization to exceed expectations.