Social Entrepreneurship in Marginalised Rural Europe: Towards Evidence-Based Policy for Enhanced Social Innovation

Fink, Matthias; Lang, Richard; Richter, Ralph

doi:10.1080/13673882.2017.11878963

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Both internal and external stakeholders affect and are affected by the social enterprise, but the extent of personal involvement and the effect on the innovativeness and the social impact differ remarkably. Apart from this, the findings underline the importance of devoting more attention in the social enterprise research to the capacity of social enterprises to develop innovative solutions and foster social innovation (Fink, Lang and Richter, 2017). Creating innovative solutions is not only a core competence of the entrepreneur in the tradition of Schumpeter but also characterizes the majority of the investigated enterprises.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

The Janus face of participatory governance: How inclusive governance benefits and limits the social innovativeness of social enterprises

Richter¹

2018

JEOD

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According to Schumpeter, the creativity and motivational ability of distinguished entrepreneurs drive innovation in enterprises. It is the individual entrepreneur who comes up with new ideas and paves the way for their realization. Conversely, social enterprises are regarded as making decisions in a collaborative manner and in close participation with stakeholders. Accordingly, the question arises as to how participative governance and the loss of the individual business leader's importance is reflected in the innovativeness of social enterprises. Does collaborative decision-making hamper the development of innovative solutions or do social enterprises benefit from their capacity to innovate? This question guided a cross-case analysis of four social enterprises, and the results are presented in this paper. The investigation revealed that participatory governance can have different consequences for the innovative strength of social enterprises. While the involvement of internal stakeholders (members, employees) appears to be beneficial for developing novel solutions but generates limited social impact, close collaboration with external stakeholders, such as local communities or regional authorities, is less advantageous with respect to identifying new trends, ideas, and opportunities. However, the involvement of external stakeholders in decision-making is beneficial concerning the safeguard of community interests and the legitimization of social enterprise activities. The results suggest that a balanced involvement of both internal and external stakeholders would be beneficial for enhancing the social innovativeness of social enterprises.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

The Janus face of participatory governance: How inclusive governance benefits and limits the social innovativeness of social enterprises

Richter¹

2018

JEOD

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“…Figure 1). Empirical evidence shows that local needs that are addressed by rural social entrepreneurship are often initially presented by a group of community members (Fink et al, 2017). In this paper, we refer to them as a Local Community Group (LCG).…”

Section: Network Social Capital and Rural Social Entrepreneursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rural social entrepreneurship: The role of social capital within and across institutional levels

Lang

Fink

2019

Journal of Rural Studies

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117

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The aim of the paper is to develop a more nuanced and multilevel understanding of the social network arena in which the rural social entrepreneur operates. We introduce and empirically assess a conceptual framework for systematic investigation of rural social entrepreneurship that is informed by both social capital theory and place-based entrepreneurship literature and also suggest a methodology. We argue that this perspective can offer valuable insights into the still under-researched interplay between rural social entrepreneurs and their institutional environment. A key insight from our analysis refers to the dialectic of horizontal and vertical networking strategies typical of rural social entrepreneurs and their business model. The paper informs researchers active at the intersection of social entrepreneurship and rural development and equips them for their future studies with a consistent and empirically supported theoretical and methodological approach.

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“…Nonetheless, social scientists started to acknowledge social innovations also in rural regions (e.g. Bock, 2016;Christmann, 2017;Fink, Lang, & Richter, 2017;Noack & Federwisch, 2019;Richter, 2016), claiming that SI is "not only a task for individual and disadvantaged rural areas but a common concern" (Bock, 2016, p. 570). This relatively new interest is furthermore based on the observation that "some local actors in rural regions have started taking up innovative ideas, experimenting with new solutions and slowing down the 'downward spiral'" (Christmann, 2017, p. 365).…”

Section: Social Innovation In Rural Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking Together Digitalization and Social Innovation in Rural Areas: An Exploration of Rural Digitalization Projects in Germany

Sept

2020

European Countryside

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Digitalization and social innovation are often discussed separately and without any spatial reference or in relation to cities, although newer works show the importance of social innovation also for rural areas. Existing digitalization projects illustrate the potential of digital technologies for rural development. Current debates on smart villages refer to both digitalization and social innovation but still in a rather unsystematic way. The paper seeks to think together digitalization and social innovation in rural areas more systemically and proposes to conceptually connect them with the help of sensitizing concepts, which are developed out of debates on social and digital social innovation. Along these concepts, the paper explores rural digitalization projects in Germany. On the one hand, this highlights the spectrum of these initiatives and, on the other hand, provides a framework under which digitalization and social innovation can be analyzed and smart villages may be supported systematically.

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Social Entrepreneurship in Marginalised Rural Europe: Towards Evidence-Based Policy for Enhanced Social Innovation

Cited by 18 publications

References 4 publications

The Janus face of participatory governance: How inclusive governance benefits and limits the social innovativeness of social enterprises

The Janus face of participatory governance: How inclusive governance benefits and limits the social innovativeness of social enterprises

Rural social entrepreneurship: The role of social capital within and across institutional levels

Thinking Together Digitalization and Social Innovation in Rural Areas: An Exploration of Rural Digitalization Projects in Germany

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