Professionalizing Cooperatives through Human Resource Management: A Systematic Literature Review and Evidence-Informed Implications for Indonesia’s Village Cooperatives

Cooperative professionalization requires more than conventional human resource management (HRM) practices because professional management must remain compatible with democratic governance, member participation, accountability, and cooperative values. However, existing evidence is fragmented across HRM, managerial development, governance, and organizational capability research. This systematic literature review synthesizes these streams and develops an evidence-informed framework for cooperative professionalization. Following PRISMA 2020, searches were conducted in Scopus through Publish or Perish for publications from 2010 to 2026. Fourteen studies were included and analyzed using thematic and mechanism-oriented synthesis. Four higher-order themes emerged: institutional alignment for cooperative professionalization, integrated HRM and managerial talent architecture, HR-to-capability conversion, and multidimensional and context-contingent cooperative effectiveness. The synthesis indicates that professionalization depends on aligning professional HR systems with cooperative governance and on converting individual and managerial resources into collective organizational capabilities. The resulting framework links governance architecture, integrated HRM, individual and managerial capabilities, organizational capabilities, contextual conditions, and multidimensional effectiveness. The framework provides an analytical basis for future empirical testing and evidence-informed professionalization of Indonesia’s Koperasi Desa/Kelurahan Merah Putih.