María del Carmen Pérez, Lidia Valiente 265 ISSN 2071-789X INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY Pérez González, M. C., & Valiente Palma, L. (2019). Territory and cooperativism: A spatial analysis of the Spanish region of Andalusia. Economics and Sociology, 12(2), 265-283. doi:10.14254/2071-789X.2019/12-2/16 TERRITORY AND COOPERATIVISM: A SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF THE SPANISH REGION OF ANDALUSIA María del Carmen Pérez ABSTRACT. This study seeks to identify the behavior of González, cooperative societies in Andalusia, as well as the University of Cadiz, environments in which their greater relative importance is Cádiz, Spain evident. The weight of cooperative societies is significantly E-mail:
[email protected] greater in Andalusia as compared to the rest of Spain. These organizations are noteworthy for acting under Lidia Valiente Palma, social, economic and environmental principles and values, University of Cadiz, and represent a potential opportunity for the region. The Cádiz, Spain methodology applied for this purpose consists of spatial E-mail:
[email protected] analysis using descriptive graphing techniques and application of spatial autocorrelation. Among the results obtained, a significant finding is these organizations’ Received: December, 2018 defined behavior as opposed to that of mercantile or 1st Revision: March, 2019 traditional businesses. In mapping the weight of Accepted: May, 2019 cooperativism in Andalusia, this study enables a deeper understanding that could lead to improved design and execution of general and specific territorial policies, and DOI: 10.14254/2071- with a greater guarantee of success. 789X.2019/12-2/16 JEL Classification: C21, Keywords: territory, cooperative societies, Andalusia, spatial O18, P12, P13, R12 autocorrelation, exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) Introduction Cooperative societies, as core organizations of the social economy are designed to reinforce the link between economies and societies and the concept of “local” (Draperi, 2014).