Theorizing how cooperatives address interconnected grand challenges: Evidence from 17 Indian cases

Societal grand challenges such as poverty, inequality, climate change and livelihood insecurity are increasingly interconnected. However, limited research explains how organizations respond to these interconnected challenges in practice. This study examines how cooperatives address such challenges through localized organizing. Drawing on a qualitative multiple-case study of 17 cooperatives across diverse sectors in India, the study uses semi-structured interviews, field observations and archival materials collected between April 2024 and May 2025. The analysis identifies five interdependent organizing mechanisms, namely member-embedded problem sensing, hybrid resource mobilization, distributed experimentation and innovation, resilience-building across domains, and cross-scale coordination and weaving. These mechanisms are supported by democratic governance, member participation and federated structures. Together, they enhance the capacity of cooperatives to address interconnected social, economic and environmental challenges through sustained collective action. The study contributes to grand challenge scholarship by explaining how organizations engage interconnected challenges through localized organizing. It also extends the hybrid organizing theory and highlights cooperative governance and federated structures as important organizational capabilities for coordination, resilience and adaptive action. The findings suggest that cooperatives offer a distinctive organizational approach for addressing complex societal challenges.