Cooperation and organizational learning in social organizations structured in cooperation networks: the case of the social integration network

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to identify and understand the learnings of the process of formation of cooperation networks among social organizations. Network organizations tend to self-management and innovation, because they favor agents’ interaction and joint performance. However, they face difficulties to be consolidated as learning organizations. Considering the inability of the State to perform functions that before were of its responsibility, the social organizations have to develop survival capacities in complex environments. The empirical study took place in Ijuí (RS) through qualitative analysis of the formation process of the Network of Social Integration, constituted in 2005. The results disclose the occurrence of learnings in all levels, in a systematic and continuous way. The learnings had been initiated at individual level and shared at collective level, until they became part of an ordinary learning process at organizational level.