Individual agency and socio‐spatial change in regional development: Conceptualizing governance entrepreneurship

Abstract

Although scholars and practitioners increasingly highlight the role of individuals in initiating socio-spatial change processes in regional development, there is still little conceptual and empirical knowledge concerning this phenomenon.Therefore, the aim of this paper is to gain a deeper theoretical understanding of entrepreneurial individuals in local and regional governance and to provide a more comprehensive framework for investigating individual agency and sociospatial change. In concepts of local and regional governance, the role of individuals has been overshadowed by the focus on institutional and organizational structures. Policy and institutional entrepreneurship literature stresses the importance of individual capabilities for identifying windows of opportunity and promoting policy and institutional change.However, it reveals some shortcomings concerning the influence of entrepreneurial individuals in governance itself.By combining both strands of literature, the concept of governance entrepreneurship is introduced here. It accentuates the role of entrepreneurial individuals in initiating change in local and regional governance by establishing or transforming actor constellations, interaction modes, or decision-

Spatial implications of digitization: State of the field and research agenda

“…By acting as digital pioneers, such start‐ups could be “agents of change” that transform rural economies (Feldman, 2014). Digital pioneers may be especially important for peripheral regions, where individual agency is of particular relevance (Döringer, 2020). In‐depth research concerning, the spatial distribution of competencies in digital entrepreneurship remains lacking.…”

Governance entrepreneurship in regional economic development: individual agency in Austria

“…A third notion that is closely linked to institutional and policy entrepreneurship, but which is still in its conceptual and empirical infancy, is governance entrepreneurship. Scholars use the term in slightly differing manners, applying different nuances in their conceptual approaches (Boasson & Huitema, 2017;Döringer, 2020a;Pattberg, 2017;Willi et al, 2018). Overall, the notion of governance entrepreneurship shares the above-mentioned characteristics of policy and institutional entrepreneurship, but focuses on the role of entrepreneurial individuals (or groups of individuals) in implementing or transforming the governance arrangements themselves.…”

Die Rolle von Schlüsselpersonen für sozialräumlichen Wandel – Ein Fallbeispiel aus Österreich

“…Hervorgehoben werden dabei insbesondere ihre individuellen Charakteristika, ihre Fähigkeiten und Strategien. Nachfolgend wird zwischen den Konzepten des Institutional Entrepreneurship (Battilana et al 2009), Policy Entrepreneurship (Mintrom & Norman 2009) und Governance Entrepreneurship (Döringer 2020) (Mintrom & Norman 2009), das heißt auf Wandlungsprozesse, die beispielsweise die Einführung von neuen politischen Maßnahmen oder Instrumenten umfassen. Dabei existieren nach Kingdon (1995) die drei Ströme "problems", "policies" und "politics".…”

“…Während unter formellen Institutionen rechtlich bindende Regelwerke, wie z.B. Gesetze oder Verordnungen (North 1990 (Döringer 2020). Dieser Wandel kann, muss aber von Einzelnen nicht bewusst intendiert sein.…”

“…Einführung oder Veränderung von (neuen) Policy-Inhalten und Maßnahmen, "policy change" (Kingdon 1995) Institutional Entrepreneurship Etablierung oder Veränderung von formellen und informellen Institutionen, "institutional change" (Battilana et al 2009, Weik 2011 Governance Entrepreneurship Veränderung von Akteurskonstellationen, Interaktionsmodi und Handlungsräumen, "governance change" (Döringer 2020)…”