Social innovation and resilience of cooperatives: Case of tourism cooperatives in the Souss Massa region

Abstract

Social innovation is considered a new specific form of entrepreneurship that has spread remarkably in recent years and is gaining more and more interest from the scientific community. In Morocco, cooperatives represent one of the most important components of the sustainable development of territories. Certainly, the COVID-19 crisis marked the end of ten consecutive years of remarkable growth of the social and solidarity sector. Faced with an inescapable fact, it has become essential for cooperatives to strengthen their organizational resilience, their capacity to adapt and react to a complex and demanding environment. The economic, social and environmental challenges faced by cooperatives require innovative approaches to ensure their sustainability. Consequently, the question of social innovation and resilience in the SSE sector is posed and imposed.  This leads to our problematic: To what extent does social innovation contribute to the resilience of cooperatives in the Souss Massa region? In this sense, a multiple case study is conducted with three cooperatives in the Souss Massa region. A cross-analysis of the results of the cooperatives interviewed shows that social innovation contributes to the resilience of cooperatives in times of crisis through supportive management practices and dissemination to internal and external stakeholders of cooperatives.

Keywords: social innovation, resilience, cooperative

Classification JEL: O35

Paper type: Empirical research