OBJECTIVES: The proposed Project concerns a current study for all of Andalusia, as well as a forthcoming study for Western Andalusia, of the Andalusian Social Economy in the category of Cooperative and Employee-Owned Companies.

DESCRIPTION: The Social Economy companies are effective formulas for responding to the issue of employment creation, especially in underprivileged areas and in financial crisis situations, given its anti-cyclic nature, all with the member’s greatest participation. Today, more than two decades after their appearance, employee-owned companies have managed to clear a large opening in the heart of the economy and this has become a safe formula, with its system of guarantees for the creation of companies and wealth, as well as the creation of stable jobs. The evolution of the cooperatives and employee-owned companies in the last decade has made it possible to promote this business system of reference for creating new companies and promoting employment opportunities for thousands of people.

This study not only reflects the consolidation of the Social Economy Companies – cooperative companies, employee-owned companies and self-employed individuals – in Spain and Andalusia as appropriate business formulas for the new economy and favourable for the development of any type of business project, but also the constant growth in the incorporation of these business models and in the generation of stable jobs, which specifically benefits and consolidates this region as one of the regions with the greatest future business prospects.

Also, the study of the population fluctuations linked to internal and international migratory phenomena in Social Economy companies has become particularly important today, constituting an aspect of special interest for a study that determines the influence of the migratory factor in the development of cooperatives in each Andalusian province and its influence on the provincial and regional map of cooperatives.

The information used to carry out this study is obtained, on the one hand from the statistics presented by the Andalusian Institute of Statistics and on the other, from a group of experts selected according to a Delfos procedure. The institutional sources of information are fundamental tools for the statistical analysis, as they are very well structured, with broad information about the fluctuations and easy access to the information by the software used, which allows the data to be easily exported to commercial statistics programmes for the analysis and validation of the results. Also, the large amount of accumulated information and the constant updating of the systems is fundamental, enabling new information to be analysed with minimal effort, based on the developed design. In the region of East Andalusia, a forthcoming study will be carried out using the Delfos method, which will allow a future scenario of the cooperativist map in Andalusia to be determined.

PARTICIPATING ENTITIES: Centro Andaluz de Prospectiva (Andalusian Centre of Forecasting), Universidad de Sevilla.

FINANCING: Department of Social Economy and Entrepreneurs of the Autonomous Government of Andalusia

COMPLETION DATE: April 2007.