Los sistemas de indicadores de gestión en la experiencia cooperativa de las ikastolas. Una investigación en curso

Abstract

Solidary and Social Economy Entities (SSEE) bear special features that set them apart from other business entities. With these entities, economic objectives are instruments to achieve their social objectives. We call this characteristic «the socioeconomic duality» of SSEEs, meaning the need to keep a socioeconomic balance in managing these organisations. To rationally and formally manage this «socioeconomic duality» or balance between the economic and the social aspect of SSEEs, it is necessary to design management integrator systems that are integral, holistic or balanced, based on the specific informational needs of different kinds of SSEEs: a management instrument that keeps the balance between financial and non-financial indicators. The purpose of this informational instrument is to help attain «balanced management» for this kind of organisation (Del Burgo et al, 2014). This article aims, through the UPV/EHU GEZKI Institute, to socialise an empirical inductive research work to address the issue at hand: after preliminary phases (bibliographical descriptive phase and exploratory phases, descriptive-valuation phases of real practises in company management: formalised information systems to plan, control and make decisions), we finally focus on a phase to propound or recommend, proposing specific measures to different entities to improve their information systems for business management. Our ultimate goal is to design a management indicator system to facilitate balanced management for the SSEEs selected as object of study. Specifically, as a multiple case study, we selected the Ikastolas' cooperative experience, a group of teaching cooperatives comprising 110 educational centres, with approximately 56,000 students and 5,000 employees, established under the European cooperative legal formula, conducting its activity in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Navarre and Iparralde. Ikastolas have developed as a deeply-rooted social movement in the territory, designed to foment the use of the Basque language and culture by means of a quality, innovative education model, organised under a cooperative, participatory formula for the entire educational community in cooperation with the public. As far as management is concerned, beginning in the 2000s, Ikastolas have also innovated in planning, control and decision-making, especially by implementing different total quality management models (Del Burgo, 2013). This is why we believe that the Ikastolas are a highly interesting study target to analyse the phenomenon of management that we aim to understand and improve with SSEEs: a self-coordinated group of not-for-profit social organisations, with the firm intent to improve their management processes.