1,721,036 research outputs found
Relational economic geography: a partial understanding or a new paradigm?
No full textRelational approaches in economic geography have grown in popularity and influence, but have not been critically evaluated or discussed. This article argues that poststructural and network-based versions of relational economic geography undoubtedly open up new research issues and provide tools for certain purposes, but questions whether they provide a coherent research agenda and new theoretical paradigm that can guide the reconceptualization of economic geography. The article addresses two main cases for a relational approach: its correspondence with a knowledge- and network-based capitalism and the claim that it provides an improved philosophy and ontology. It finds problems with both cases and argues that the approach provides an imprecise and selective ontology that is preoccupied with microscale processes. As a result, relational economic geography does not lend itself to causal explanations and schemas, is incapable of discriminating among different economic theories, and could become immune to empirical evaluation. In many cases, it seems to disregard many of the valuable insights of institutionalist and critical realist approaches, including the implications of emergence. The article concludes that instead of searching for a microlevel relational perspective or a new vocabulary, economic geography's analysis of connections and relations would be better set within an evolutionary and historical institutionalism that understands economic relations as forms of institutional rules and practices and does not privilege ties and networks over nodes and agents.<br/
Why an evolutionary economic geography?: the spatial economy as a complex evolving system
No full textSocial enterprise and neo-institutional theory: An evaluation of the organizational logics of SE in the UK
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that neoinstitutional theory can provide insights into the conflicts between social ends and economic means within social enterprises (SEs). Tensions between these differing institutional logics may be seen as a manifestation of ambiguity and incoherence in anorganizational field that is, despite many recent regulative and normative changes, still weakly institutionalized in the UK.Design/methodology/approach – The research design adopts a qualitative approach and is based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 40 SE managers in four major UK cities.Findings – Findings suggest that SE managers deal with the competing institutional logics of “the market” and “social care” in differing ways.Research limitations/implications – The case studies are derived from major UK cities where SEs are more likely to be dependent on state and quasi-public sector forms of support.Practical implications – Policies attempting to imbue a more commercial and business-like approach with the institutional field of SE should recognize the tensions imposed by such a shift. These tensions are especially pronounced in SEs affected by changes to state funding regimes and publiclysponsored markets. In some situations, such market logic may be largely inappropriate.Social implications – Changing institutional logics within an organizational field such as SE requires a recognition of the complex interrelationships between that factors that create and sustain such a field, most notably legal (regulative), educational (normative) and attitudinal (cognitive) factors.<br/
Deconstructing clusters: chaotic concept or policy panacea?
No full textOver the past decade, there has been growing interest in local industrial agglomeration and specialization, not only by economic geographers but also by economists and by policy-makers. Of the many ideas and concepts to have emerged from this new-found focus, Michael Porter's work on ‘clusters’ has proved by far the most influential. His ‘cluster theory’ has become the standard concept in the field, and policy-makers the world over have seized upon Porter's cluster model as a tool for promoting national, regional, and local competitiveness, innovation and growth. But the mere popularity of a construct is by no means a guarantee of its profundity. Seductive though the cluster concept is, there is much about it that is problematic, and the rush to employ ‘cluster ideas’ has run ahead of many fundamental conceptual, theoretical and empirical questions. Our aim is to deconstruct the cluster concept in order to reveal and highlight these issues. Our concerns relate to the definition of the cluster concept, its theorization, its empirics, the claims made for its benefits and advantages, and its use in policy-making. Whilst we do not wish to debunk the cluster idea outright, we do argue for a much more cautious and circumspect use of the notion, especially within a policy context: the cluster concept should carry a public policy health warning. <br/
Do urban social enterprises benefit from agglomeration? Evidence from four UK cities
No full textPinch S. and Sunley P. Do urban social enterprises benefit from agglomeration? Evidence from four UK cities, Regional Studies. This paper examines the relevance of clustering theory for an understanding of the location of social enterprises (SEs). This is accomplished through an analysis of the extent to which managers of SEs in four major UK cities perceive themselves to benefit from agglomeration effects. The paper concentrates on two broad sets of agglomeration processes: the first is Marshallian externalities and Porter's cluster processes; and the second set includes urbanization economies and local institutional relationships. The study suggests the key benefits of agglomeration to SEs are that it enables access to demand for SE goods and services together with institutional support, funding and commercial contracts, as well as access to both formal and informal networks that can provide a wide range of knowledge and mutual support. It was, however, difficult to find direct evidence to support the importance of the Marshall–Arrow–Romer (MAR)-type spillovers related to labour market pooling, the efficient procurement of indirect inputs or localized knowledge spillovers
Financing social enterprise: social bricolage or evolutionary entrepreneurialism?
No full textThis paper examines the extent to which urban social enterprises (SEs) have diversified their funding sources and shifted towards loans and development finance in recent years. The paper considers the underlying reasons for a limited demand for loans by comparing two theoretical perspectives on SE development. The concept of 'social bricolage' implies SEs do not seek conventional loans or equity finance because they survive in resource poor environments by improvising and re-using redundant capital. A second evolutionary approach implies SE financing will be dominated by reliance on habits and practices learnt from the context in which social entreprenerurs have operated
The local construction of social enterprise markets: an evaluation of Jens Beckert's field approach
No full textDespite the rapid growth of interest in social enterprises (SEs) and the intense controversies over their merits in addressing pressing social, economic and environmental issues, there has been surprisingly little attention given to explicit theorization of how the markets for their goods and services are constructed and maintained. Towards this end this paper examines the conceptualization of market fields formulated by Jens Beckert. His approach conceptualises firms as engaged in a constant struggle to defend or improve their position in relation to others firms by either protecting existing structures or changing them to realise new opportunities. This framework is used to analyse the reciprocal interactions between forces of institutions, networks and cognitive frameworks as they serve to construct opportunities for SE. These relationships are exemplified with evidence from respondents in SEs in four cities in England – Liverpool, Birmingham, Southampton and the London borough of Newham. The analysis suggests that Beckert’s approach helps to move beyond a singular notion of a single ‘market logic’ and allows us to unpack some of the hybrid character of SE markets. However, because of the way in the field perspective has been designed to explain agency in orthodox capitalist markets, it struggles to incorporate the motivations that drive agency in these markets
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