From Governance to Digital Transformation: A Networked Approach to Cooperative Sustainability

This study advances a networked governance framework that explains how collaborative governance (CG), good governance (GG), and digital transformation (DT) jointly strengthen the sustainability of Indonesian food cooperatives as member-owned small and medium enterprise (SME) organizations embedded in agrifood value chains. Using a sequential mixed-method design that combines qualitative exploration, the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM), and the Analytic Network Process (ANP), the study validates and prioritizes 25 indicators across CG, GG, and DT. The originality of the paper lies in moving beyond separate accounts of governance reform or technology adoption by empirically modeling their interdependencies and translating them into an actionable maturity pathway. Qualitative NVivo analysis identified six contextual domains—Institutional Design, Leadership and Culture, Collaborative Governance, Good Governance, Digital Transformation, and Resource Thresholds—that condition cooperative sustainability. FDM results confirmed expert consensus (Crisp ≥ 3.5, SD ≤ 0.5) on all indicators, while ANP showed Good Governance as the foundational cluster (0.5317), Collaborative Governance as the differentiating driver (0.3220), and Digital Transformation as the catalyst (0.1463). The top global priorities—partnership orchestration, multi-stakeholder mechanisms, and government facilitation—show that collaboration is the critical performance lever. The theoretical contribution is an integrated CG–GG–DT model for cooperative sustainability; the practical contribution is a prioritized policy roadmap for moving cooperatives from Technology Readiness Level 2 to 3 through governance standardization, digital literacy, and cross-sector collaboration. By framing cooperative sustainability as a knowledge-intensive governance challenge, the study shows how rules, relational capabilities, and digital skills shape value co-creation across stakeholders.