Mainstream enterprises function by alleviating the cognitive burdens on their members and hence generating an insensitivity to all those complex environmental factors, in which they critically depend. By focusing on the political, institutional dynamics, the present article dwells on the questions of: how can social enterprises regain the embeddedness to the political, institutional environment and how can this process quest the dominant, institutional closure?To address these questions the article introduces a synergy between new institutionalism and systems theory, both macro-sociological approaches that can compensate for each other's deficiencies. In this context, the hybrid concept of institutional entrepreneurship describes the institutionalization of new organizational forms via the embeddedness of the institutional logics that underpin them. An in-depth qualitative research of the OTELO social enterprise, and of its institutional framework of Mühlviertel was conducted. Empirical evidence shows that social entrepreneurship can regain the institutionally sustainability by becoming embedded to the fields of legitimacy, politics and discourse, and through this process dispute the broader institutional closeness.
The 2008 fiscal crisis, inflamed by austerity measures, has prompted rural marginalization and societal segmentation across the European Union (EU). The current article investigates how a European rural revival can be materialized, without losing sight of the national and local conditions. Within the contemporary EU governance framework-in which a European institution cannot be categorized as endogenous or exogenous to a sub-state nation-the concept of neo-endogenous rural development seems more topical than ever. The term describes a new perspective of governance that reconciles the endogenous to the exogenous dynamics. Along these lines, the present article dwells on the question of how can the neo-endogenous rural development agenda be disseminated across the EU. By identifying the lack of international comparative research in the field of rural development, the current study explores different European, rural development trajectories and draws meaningful comparisons. A comparative qualitative research was conducted in three rural regions, stratified in terms of economic and governance decentralization: Mühlviertel in Austria, Baixo Alentejo in Portugal, and Phthiotis in Greece. The comparative research indicated the importance of interregional networking and socially innovative governance for the embeddedness of a neo-endogenous rural development agenda.**This research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska Curie grant agreement number 721999.
Social innovation is conceptualized as having two intimately related pillars: institutional innovation and locally embedded innovation, in the sense of social economy. Two main research questions were addressed: how political, institutional innovation is fostered and how does it influence social economy? A mixed methods research was conducted in the Mühlviertel NUTS3 region. Despite a framework of enhanced autonomy and institutional innovation for the main stakeholders, both macro and micro analysis illustrate a lack of intermediate space to: a) link the innovative agenda to high-state political agendas, and b) link institutional innovation to social economy.
The aim of this article is to understand how socially innovative spatial planning is fostered or impeded within disadvantaged rural areas and to identify the isomorphic dynamics that perpetuate governance failures and curb innovative capacities. This article draws from sociological institutionalist accounts within spatial planning to develop an integrated epistemological tool that traces the institutional qualities that affect the capacity for innovation. Mixed methods research was conducted in the NUTS3 region of Baixo Alentejo; the innovative spatial planning capacities were investigated at both the level of broad governance and the micro-environment of Local Action Groups (LAGs). The findings revealed that despite the enhanced institutional resources possessed by some LAGs, the weak interconnections with the broader governance framework restrict socially innovative spatial planning. In other words, in the absence of a strong governance chain of innovation, even the most empowered links might prove trivial.
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