The Advanced Coop Management Program provides senior executives of cooperatives a unique opportunity to benefit from the experience of a top business school located in one of the most vibrant and exciting European capitals.

This program aims at exposing participants to state-of-the-art knowledge on the most relevant business science fields, while providing the participants with an international networking environment to foster solution seeking discussions.

We are gathering top business researchers and professors from CATÓLICA-LISBON and from other top tiered european schools to customize the School’s flagship Advanced Management Program to managers of cooperatives.

In addition to the academic and networking opportunities, the Program will include visits to local cooperatives and institutions with the purpose of illustrating how the Cooperativism Movement is contributing significantly in many areas of the Portuguese economy.

The Program will take place in Lisbon during the month of May, a wonderful time of the year to visit Portugal.

Participants should come from the highest levels of cooperative management, including members of institutions that promote the global Cooperativism Movement.

All participants are expected to contribute intensely to classroom debates and should be willing to enrich the quality of the discussion by sharing their experiences, approaches and perspectives.

In partnership with:

"The best way to improve the productivity in a cooperative and its team work, as well as to maximize their partners performance, is to organize specialized events that are designed to meet their goals. Web Business is a M.I.C.E. organization, specialized in worldwide cooperativism, and makes events that are specifically aimed for professionals in cooperatives. We work either in specific locations or personalize the event according to each of our client’s needs."

Luiz Branco
Wex-Business, Director

CONTENTS:

Global Economic Trends

The world is facing one of the most challenging periods in History. The strong acceleration of transformation processes has been creating lots of shocks and opportunities around the planet. New technologies and new financial products in a changing geostrategic environment generate lots of puzzles, dilemmas and choices. Several blocks try to affirm themselves. We will discuss what cooperatives can do to adapt to these trends.

Enhancing Positive and Effective Communication

Communicators face two ambitious – and sometimes conflicting – goals. On one hand, they have to be clear and concise, so that the audience knows what they have to do. On the other hand, communicators have to also show warmth and understanding, especially for difficult requests, so that the audience is motivated to cooperate and to maintain a positive relationship. The purpose of this module is to show participants how to achieve both objectives! Participants will learn to anticipate obstacles to communicating, and strategies for overcoming them in ways that increase open communication, mutual understanding, and employee motivation.

Social Entrepreneurship

This session will analyze the global trends shaping the field of social entrepreneurship. Though mini case-studies and international examples we will discuss the following topics:

• the importance of social entrepreneurship as an innovation engine for the social and cooperative sector;
• how to develop innovative and sustainable business models to solve societal problems;
•  the challenge and approaches of measuring impact;
• the rising role of impact investing and the new financing mechanisms for social innovation;
• the increased collaboration of the social, public and corporate sectors.

Roundtables on cooperative experiences around the world

This panel gathers worldwide experts able to provide a global discussion on how cooperatives can help foster sustainable development. How can cooperativism engage populations, accelerate entrepreneurship, mature businesses and enhance credit? These are the questions we want our experts to address and help us understand the role of cooperatives in society, in the economies and how they can relate to local and central governments. The panel will include practical examples and case studies, followed by Q&As and an engaging discussion with the audience.

Strategic Marketing Decisions

This course aims to outline the importance of understanding customers’ behaviour and their specific needs in order to develop appropriate marketing strategies. Specific information about how customers choose, buy, and dispose the products or services, help organizations to properly define its core market and to identify threats and opportunities for their products. It is therefore of major importance to adequately analyze potential customers, identifying its needs and wishes in order to properly offer customized solutions and to successfully innovate.

Conflict Management & Persuasion

Organizations are changing, the old management model of command and hierarchy is giving way to a radically different one based on influence and cooperation. In fact, organizations don’t need command managers anymore but instead master persuaders! Faced with this new reality, the most successful managers should be able to solve conflicts without using authority but effective
conflict management skills such as interests based negotiation and constructive persuasion. These interpersonal competencies are the core subject of this highly pragmatic module.

Business Ethics

Why incredibly intelligent people do incredibly stupid things? What are the most frequent dynamics associated with fraud and corruption in the nonprofit sector? What should be done to avoid mobbing or discrimination in cooperatives, social enterprises and other organizations of the third sector? And how organizational crises can be prevented and eventually resolved? This course will address these questions focusing on three main objectives. First, analyzing in detail organizational dynamics associated with ethically problematic situations such as corruption, mobbing, sexual harassment, etc. Second, learning how to design effective policies to prevent and eventually manage the aforementioned ethically problematic situations. Third, developing a critical perspective of managers’ responsibilities and liabilities in the third sector.

Digital Business Transformation

Today’s business environment can be characterized as being increasingly competitive, complex, volatile and digital. Corporate leaders and managers are struggling to effectively address the business challenges and organizational issues that this new environment induces, including the opportunities and threats resulting from digital disruption. Key strategic questions that this module addresses include: How to create (or recognize) digital opportunities and how to seize them for a competitive advantage? How can companies leverage digital capabilities and technology-enabled business models to create and capture value? How to use technology to transform the organization from a rigid, industrial and product-centric entity into an agile, innovative and customer-centric one? What type of leadership is required to carry out such digital business transformation and to manage the related change management journey?