Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Mondragón

On Friday we visited Mondragon, a global cooperative business with four areas of focus: Finance, Industry, Retail, and Education.  The company was founded by José María Arizmendiarrieta, a Catholic priest, in 1956 and has grown to become an international company with over 70,000 employees. It has a unique business structure in that it has a bottom-up management policy where each employee participates in making management decisions. It also has an independent healthcare system and pension plan for its employees. Over 90% of the Mondragon's employees are owners of the company, and management has never had to fire anyone in the 60 years of its existence. While there, we spent our time learning about the company from the Director of Cooperative Dissemination, Mikel Lezamiz, sat in on part of a business class for graduate students, enjoyed a wonderful 3-course lunch, and absorbed the view from the terrace. We then returned to our inn where we enjoyed some free time before having another fantastic dinner and restful night there. 






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