Creating competitive advantage through co-operativeness : The strategic renewal of the Finnish S Group since the early 1980s

Abstract

When the co-operative movement started in Finland, the country was an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire with ambitions to be independent. The co-operative strategy for national survival was to create competitive commercial structures relying on three pillars: a mutually coordinating ideological umbrella organization Pellervo Society, co-operative legislation and a federal two-tier organizational model. The Central Finnish Co-operative Society SOK was consequently founded in 1904 as an integral component of this structure. As the lessons derived from a study of the Finnish S Group have not been covered in detail to date, this chapter is useful as a means of supplementing the literature. Three substantive components of S Group's strong development are still missing, and it is necessary to complete the global analytical picture of consumer co-operatives. All these issues are systemic and relevant to the comprehensive interpretation of co-operativeness.