The support paradox in community enterprise experiments in the Netherlands

Abstract

In many European countries, community entrepreneurship is increasingly considered as a means to initiate small-scale urban regeneration in the context of austerity policies and welfare state retrenchment. However, residents in deprived neighbourhoods are often viewed to lack key entrepreneurial attributes and skills. While there is research on community entrepreneurship support, most evidence is based on cross-sectional studies and overly focussed on support provided through government policies. This paper extends the current body of knowledge by reporting a unique national experiment in the Netherlands with nascent community enterprises which received start-up support from a private foundation. The paper aims is to investigate how active citizens perceive the benefits and drawbacks of this support. The approached used is unique because of its longitudinal nature right from the start of the experiment. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of transcriptions of repeated semi-structured interviews with the same respondents (panel design) from nascent community enterprises in a number of Dutch deprived neighbourhoods. While positive feedback on the support is found, the study provides strong evidence for a 'support paradox': the support that was intended to overcome a number of entry barriers and difficulties on the road to community entrepreneurship has in fact significantly hampered progress among several of the studied community enterprises.Keywords: community entrepreneurship, active citizenship, urban regeneration, selforganisation, The Netherlands. AcknowledgementsThis work was supported by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom relations [Grant Number VP 7284] and LSA (the National Association of Active Residents). Our special thanks go to Wenda Doff and Arie Romein who conducted the interviews and site visits for this project. We are also indebted to Raymond Lunes and Floor Langendijk (Ministry of the Interior) as well as Henk Cornelissen, Ties de Ruijter and Marieke Boeije (LSA) for their constructive comments during the research project and completion of the final report. We are also thankful to all CE representatives who happily co-operated multiple times with the interviews.

Exploring the durability of community enterprises: A qualitative comparative analysis

“…A business model which can generate a steady and secure revenue stream can enhance the autonomy of the CE and thus its durability. A business model may include several components (Bailey 2012;Varady et al 2015;Kleinhans and Van Ham 2017):…”

“…The existing body of knowledge (across different fields of research) identifies several important conditions contributing to the durability of CEs. Four often recurring conditions are: access to strong social capital (Somerville and McElwee 2011;McKeever et al 2014), entrepreneurial community leadership (Selsky and Smith 1994;Purdue 2001;Haugh 2007), a supportive relationship with key players in the institutional environment (Van Meerkerk et al 2013;Voorberg et al 2015) and a well-developed business model (Bailey 2012;Kleinhans and Van Ham 2017). However, previous research has often examined these conditions individually but not in conjunction, thus missing out on their interrelationships.…”

The Dynamics of Self‐Governance Capacity: The Dutch Rural Civic Initiative ‘Project Ulrum 2034’

“…The need to account for public money resulted in the centralisation and formalisation of management, which invoked conflict and at times obstructed goal realisation. Low levels of engagement with the broader community reflects low self‐governance capacity, with weak scores in terms of democratic value, representativeness and legitimacy, as Van Meerkerk et al () and Kleinhans and Van Ham () elaborate. At the same time, the success in satisfying community needs reconfirms the capacity to self‐govern (Healey ).…”

“…The experience of Ulrum demonstrates that the involvement of public authorities in raising community self‐governance may result in what Kleinhans and van Ham () framed as a ‘support paradox'. For the project as a whole, contrary to their intention and effort, the EC‐members increasingly lost contact with the wider community.…”

“…According to Healey (), such initiatives are typically small‐scale and undertaken by residents who want to improve their living environment. Their activities range from singular, well‐defined tasks, such as the maintenance of a playing ground or organising weekly dinners for the elderly, to community enterprises that deliver a variety of ‘products’, such as a local renewable energy scheme, broadband networks or care cooperative (Farmer et al ; Steinerowski and Steinerowska‐Streb ; Healey ; Munoz et al ; Kleinhans and Van Ham ).…”