PTWisdom that becomes innovation, innovation that becomes wisdom
How do agribusiness cooperatives in western Paraná, Brazil, turn what they know into something new? The author talked with 11 leaders and managers from 5 cooperatives and found a cycle: what people learn together feeds innovation, and innovation put into practice comes back as wisdom. Explained in 12 screens.
The cubes circle between wisdom and innovation and change color along the way: the central idea of the thesis. Illustrative image.
Knowing how to decide and knowing how to create are different capabilities
Organizational wisdom is an organization's ability to learn from what it has been through, adapt and make good decisions. Innovation capacity is the ability to create new ideas, products and processes and put them into practice.
There is a lot of research on innovation and much less on wisdom in organizations. Studies that look at both together are rare, and the author found none on agribusiness cooperatives. Pick an aspect and compare.
Definitions and authors cited in the thesis literature review (sections 2.1 and 2.2). The definition of wisdom (López and Rodríguez-Cruz, 2019) was read to the interviewees at the start of each conversation.
“There is no wisdom without exchange”
“I see that there is no wisdom without exchange. […] We have data, we have information, we have knowledge, and only then do we reach wisdom.”IT manager · Coop5 (Table 20 of the thesis)
The quote sums up the thesis's first category, the building of wisdom: it does not come from a single person, but from members of the cooperative sharing experiences. Tap the steps, then switch the exchange off.
The staircase comes from the interviewee's words. The explanation of each step and the “no exchange” view are our reading, to illustrate the idea.
Five cooperatives in a region that lives on cooperativism
Western Paraná is one of the country's major producers of grain, milk and meat, with a strong presence of cooperatives. The thesis brings together some figures for the sector in the state:
Sources cited in the thesis: Paraná State Department of Agriculture (via Globo.com, 2024) and a report by the Ocepar System, the state's cooperative organization. The names of the 5 cooperatives studied are not disclosed: the author calls them Coop1 to Coop5.
Eleven long conversations with the people who make innovation happen
Between December 2023 and April 2024, the author interviewed leaders and managers working in innovation, technology and management. The script had 19 open questions and planned for up to 30 minutes, but every conversation ran longer.
The first interview was a pilot, used to adjust the script. Excerpts were coded in Atlas.ti, software that helps organize what people said but does not interpret it for anyone.
Data from Tables 17 and 18 of the thesis. Totals and averages (about 9 hours, 368 excerpts, 177 years at the co-op combined) are our own counts.
The most-used word was “gente” (people)
The author combined the 11 interviews into a word cloud: the more often a word came up, the bigger it is. In the center, bigger than “inovação” (innovation) and “sabedoria” (wisdom), is “gente”, which the author reads as “people”.
For the author, it is a portrait of the thesis: people are the link that carries the organization's knowledge and wisdom and that drives innovation. Use the filters to see the word groups.
Redrawn from Figure 10 of the thesis (Atlas.ti 25), with the words translated into English (the interviews were in Portuguese). The thesis does not report counts: sizes are approximate, read from the figure. We removed “entrevistador” (interviewer). The groups are ours.
From 368 excerpts of conversation to 5 propositions
The author used Grounded Theory, in Kathy Charmaz's version. Instead of starting from a hypothesis to test, it lets the theory emerge from what people said: read, code, compare and group, in layers, until the ideas stop bringing anything new.
Each dot on the right is a real item from the analysis. Tap a layer to see how one leads to the next.
Before the fieldwork, a literature review gathered 151 articles on organizational wisdom (Web of Science and Scopus), of which 41 were selected.
Seven themes explain how people learn and innovate
The 23 focused categories became 7 broad themes, which the thesis calls theoretical categories. Tap each one to see what it is made of and what the interviewees said.
Categories and quotes from Tables 19 to 26 of the thesis, translated by us. We identify each person by job title and cooperative.
Everything goes through people learning and ends in wisdom
The author linked the 7 themes in a diagram. On the left, what comes in: strategies, challenges and incentives. In the center, knowledge generation and employee learning. From there come innovation capacity and innovation in practice, and every path arrives at the building of wisdom.
In other words: wisdom is not only the starting point for innovation. It is also what remains after innovating.
tap a circle
Redrawn from Figure 11 of the thesis. The author presents the diagram as a proposal that can still be refined and tested.
Money, resistance and time put the brakes on innovation
The interviewees spoke openly about the barriers. On the front of each card, the brake; on the back, what the cooperatives do about it, according to the interviews and the author.
A self-feeding cycle
“The innovation capacity the cooperative has feeds itself, and it is a cycle.”Research, development and innovation manager · Coop2 (Table 22)
The thesis ends with five propositions: statements that emerge from the interviews and that other studies can test. Together, they describe a cycle in which wisdom and innovation feed each other. Tap each one.
Propositions from section 4.9 of the thesis. Where each one sits in the cycle is our reading.
Investing in people is investing in innovation
For cooperative leaders
- Continuous training, such as a corporate university, also open to members.
- Spaces for exchange: idea programs, improvement groups and innovation committees.
- Recognize and reward those who innovate; give teams autonomy.
For the innovation ecosystem
- Partnerships with startups, universities, research institutes and other cooperatives extend what each one can do alone.
- Regional networks, such as Iguassu Valley and Sebrae (Brazil's small business support agency), appear in the interviews as part of the path.
For the region and society
- According to the author, the research values local knowledge and cooperative practices and can support the development of western Paraná.
- Other organizations can use the model as a starting point.
What this research does not say
- A specific context. Agribusiness is very diverse (crops, sizes, conditions); the practices may work differently elsewhere. · according to the author
- Who was heard. 11 leaders and managers from 5 cooperatives. Members and other employees were not interviewed. · thesis data
- A model to be tested. The diagram and the propositions come from a qualitative study; the author suggests testing them in other regions and countries, with mixed methods. · according to the author
Credits
COSSMANN, Ana Paula. A sabedoria organizacional e sua relação com a capacidade de inovação em cooperativas do agronegócio no Oeste do Paraná [Organizational wisdom and its relationship with innovation capacity in agribusiness cooperatives in western Paraná]. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration) — Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, 2025. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Gilberto Perez.
Qualitative research with semi-structured interviews and Grounded Theory (Charmaz). This version simplifies the work for a general audience; the full quotes and discussions are in the original text.