The emergence of collective competence in a cooperative venture

Matthieu Garcia-Mesa ()
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Matthieu Garcia-Mesa: LEST - Laboratoire d'Economie et de Sociologie du Travail - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This communication, presented at the 10th EMES International Training School (UCLouvain–ULiège, 2026), asks how the emergence of collective competence can be rendered intelligible and modelled without flattening its complexity. It draws on a two-year research-intervention (2022–2024) conducted from within "Feather", a French Collective Interest Cooperative (SCIC) formed by five independent professionals in continuing vocational training. The longitudinal corpus comprises twelve monthly cooperative meetings, interviews and focus groups, over 2,000 pages of transcripts coded in NVivo, and an ethnographic journal. Three frameworks are articulated: Mendez's processual analysis (ingredients, drivers, sequences, bifurcation), Morin's complexity paradigm and Le Moigne's axiomatic-inferential systemic modelling. The thesis defended is that collective competence is neither a state nor a sum, but a retroactive combinatory process of complexification and simplification within a praxic system of values and competences. The 2023 breakdown is read as generative, and balance among actors is proposed as a fifth attribute.

Keywords: engaged research; cooperative; social and solidarity economy; longitudinal case study; constructivist epistemology; research-intervention; processual analysis; systemic modelling; complexity paradigm; emergence; collective competence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-06-29
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Published in What Epistemologies and Methodologies for Engaged Research in the SE Field in Times of Multidimensional Crises, EMES; UC Louvain; HEC Liège, Jun 2026, Louvain- la-Neuve, Bruxelles, Belgium

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05706248

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