Richard Lang- Professor
- Professor (Full) at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Richard Lang
- Professor
- Professor (Full) at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
Director of the Competence Centre for the Management of Cooperatives
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54
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Introduction
Richard Lang is Professor and Director of the Competence Centre for the Management of Cooperatives at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
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Publications
Publications (54)
We advance the social‐symbolic work perspective by developing an understanding of places as objects characterized by location, materiality, function, and symbolic meaning and which can be changed through social‐symbolic work. Drawing from a longitudinal study of the ‘Empty Homes’ Programme in England, our analysis identifies an unfolding process of...
In this study, we investigate how production Cooperatives with a Sharing Economy Business Model (CSE‐BMs) foster innovations in structurally weak rural places. Taking a place‐based social capital perspective, we argue that the strength of CSE‐BMs in developing process, service, product, and social innovation lies in their ability to reconfigure sha...
Full text: https://micoll.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/MICOLL-Transition-Agenda-2023.pdf
Dieser Beitrag widmet sich der Rolle von Kooperationen im Nonprofit-Sektor aus einer Innovationsperspektive. Eine wachsende Zahl lokaler zivilgesellschaftlicher Initiativen experimentiert mit neuartigen sozialen Praktiken und technologischen Lösungen, um die Nachhaltigkeitstransformation aktiv zu gestalten und voranzutreiben. In der Literatur wird...
This paper analyzes social sustainability in the context of urban housing through the lens of institutional capital. It examines how civil society housing actors co-construct bottom-linked governance arrangements by interacting endogenously with peers and exogenously with institutional actors, such as public housing agencies and elected officials,...
The question why social enterprises (SEs) adopt particular governance structures and legal forms is tremendously complex (Ebrahim et al. 2014), and the state of literature on the institutional choice and comparative advantages of the cooperative form is still somewhat poor in several respects. The identification of critical factors determining the...
The paper aims to develop a better understanding of the evolution and structuration of contemporary civil society fields. It applies analytical elements from field theories and closely related network governance literature within a qualitative research design to explore collective action around community-led housing (CLH) in England, a label assign...
Europe is witnessing a new wave of collective self-organized forms of housing provision. We refer to the wide variety of these forms under the umbrella term “Collaborative Housing”. Alongside growing grassroots activity, the number and breadth of academic publications is rapidly growing. Nevertheless, the field remains thematically fragmented, with...
The paper aims to take forward recent research concerning the development of grassroots innovations and sustainability transitions in housing. We introduce and empirically assess a multi-level, process-oriented framework informed by strategic niche management (SNM) and social capital theory. Drawing on qualitative data, the empirical part explores...
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rural Europe investigates how social entrepreneurship advances social innovation in rural Europe and contributes to fighting social and economic challenges in these regions.
Based on longitudinal data collected in four European countries, this book explains how social enterprises enact their business model...
Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Rural Europe investigates how social entrepreneurship advances social innovation in rural Europe and contributes to fighting social and economic challenges in these regions.
Based on longitudinal data collected in four European countries, this book explains how social enterprises enact their business model...
The Coalition Government’s ‘Big Society’ and localism agendas sought to devolve power from government to communities, with the aim of giving local people more control over local services. This research examines the prospects for the community-led housing sector arising from these policies, as well as exploring the potential that co-operative govern...
The aim of this chapter is to investigate the role of different international models of cooperative housing for social sustainability in the urban context. Although the focus is on the micro-scale of communities and neighbourhoods, the suggested analytical framework takes into account the multi-scalar and multi-level nature of social sustainability...
Collaborative housing models suggest alternative and radical approaches to both financing affordable housing in the city and increasing the diversity of urban living. This chapter critically investigates the potential of driving social innovations within the affordable housing sector through new collaborative models: Baugruppen, the “Syndicate mode...
Social enterprises are an important and growing sector of the Austrian economy. Especially in times of growing social problems, such as migration, demographical changes and welfare-state reforms the contribution of social enterprises is expected to become more important. They take over responsibility through generating innovative and demand-oriente...
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 entreprene...
Social entrepreneurship increasingly drives social innovation addressing social challenges in marginalised rural regions. Because social entrepreneurs are seen as promising new players with a capacity to tackle social problems, policies that effectively support social entrepreneurship counteracting challenges in rural Europe are very much needed. T...
The aim of this paper is to investigate how the institutional context influences the configuration of collaborative housing models in Austria. Although Austria has a well-established cooperative sector, few empirical studies and no comprehensive overviews have been published on collaborative housing. This paper aims to fill this research gap by ext...
The paper provides an overview of existing social enterprise models in Austria and analyses their historical trajectories and institutionalisation processes.
In recent years, nonprofit scholars have increasingly studied the phenomenon of social enterprises which has become a generic term describing a wider reorientation among third sector organizations. The emergence of social enterprises has also led to a dynamic of hybridization and broadening in the cooperative sector, similar to an earlier dynamic o...
This paper revisits the sustainable entrepreneurship journey by introducing a ‘place-based’ sustainable venture path model. We suggest that distinguishing between emotional (‘caring about the place’) and instrumental (‘using the place’) place attachment of sustainable entrepreneurs deepens our understanding of how place-based challenges of sustaina...
Bringing real localism into practice through co-operative housing governance: The role and prospects for community-led housing in England
William Plowden Fellowship Report
by Richard Lang and David Mullins
The overall aim of this fellowship project was to explore the potential that co-operative housing governance offers for effective localism an...
Transition to a market-based economic structure in the post-communist countries of the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region since the early 1990s has been accompanied by intense IT-driven technological change. Internationalisation opportunities have emerged for IT sector small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) based on the region’s strong poss...
The article examines the role of housing cooperatives for social cohesion in the city by introducing linking social capital which grasps the vertical dimension of social capital. Housing cooperatives represent a crucial intermediate level between residents and urban housing policy, thus providing opportunity structures for bottom-linked citizen par...
In Deutschland ist es in den letzten Jahren zu einem deutlichen Zuwachs von Energieprojekten mit Bürgerbeteiligung gekommen. Viele dieser Projekte organisieren sich in der Rechtsform der Genossenschaft. Diese Rechtsform bietet einen geeigneten Rahmen für Kooperationen von Bürgern mit Gemeinden und/oder kommunalen Unternehmen (z.B. Stadtwerke), da G...
Die Kooperation „Sooo gut schmeckt die Bucklige Welt“ ist eine typische regionale Vermarktungskooperation, die sowohl durch betriebsindividuelle aber vor allem auch durch regionalpolitische Ziele motiviert ist. Unabhängig von den regionalpolitischen Zielen muss eine solche Kooperation dem einzelnen Gruppenmitglied individuelle Vorteile verschaffen,...
This article provides new insight into the local institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurial behaviour. By introducing a sociological institutional framework to place-based entrepreneurship, the study particularly adds to the knowledge of the role of regulative, normative and cognitive institutions for local entrepreneurial practices in rural Cen...
In recent years, the number of energy projects involving citizen participation in Germany has risen considerably. Many of these projects are organised in the legal form of a co-operative. The case study discusses one of these energy cooperatives, Solargenossenschaft Rosenheim. It inquires into the role of the co-operative in creating and sustaining...
This special issue of IJCM is devoted to current research on co-operative housing. There is a renewed political and academic interest in co-operative organisations as alternative providers of affordable housing in recent years. Although the concept is widespread across the globe and has a long tradition, co-operative housing practice is little-know...
In this article, we investigate into local economic restructuring in rural areas that are affected by disruptive technologies. Drawing on an institutionalist framework we apply systematic theory-informed case study analysis of two rural communities in Austria and identify practices that are crucial for a sustainable development of local communities...
Tiefgreifende gesellschaftliche Transformationsprozesse, zu denen die Überalterung der Gesellschaft, Migrationsprozesse sowie die Tendenz zu Singlehaushalten zählen, stellen die Stadtentwicklung vor große Herausforderungen. In der genossenschaftlichen Wohnungswirtschaft liegen wichtige Ressourcenpotenziale, um einer sozialräumlichen Polarisierung e...
This article deals with this social component of the concept of the "Smart City" and specifically with the importance of social capital in neighborhoods for sustainable urban development. Far-reaching social transformation processes, including the aging of society, migration processes, and the trend toward single households, pose major challenges f...
Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine the impact of co-operative governance structures on citizen participation in public service provision.
Methodology – Using a multiple case study-approach, we analyse and compare five examples of co-operative public–citizen partnerships in Austria and Germany.
Findings – The study clearly shows that co...
How can municipalities in Central Europe create favourable conditions for local business? What and how can municipalities learn from each other? How can each individual in the local area contribute? And what requirements have to be met before know-how can successfully be transferred on a communal level?
To answer all these questions, the authors o...
The article inquires into the role of the institutional context in explaining the governance of community co-operatives. These organizations do not solely focus on a member's advantage but act on behalf of some collective identity. To enhance our understanding of the nature of co-operative governance on the neighborhood level, we draw on theoretica...
Drawing on the case of Vienna, the article examines the role of third sector housing for social cohesion in the city. With the joint examination of an organisational and an institutional level of housing governance, the authors apply an interdisciplinary, multi-level research approach which aims at contributing to a comprehensive understanding of s...
This paper provides a systematic literature overview of existing research on social capital in relation to housing and neighbourhood management. A growing body of research documents the significance of social capital for the social cohesion and well-being of neighbourhoods. Thus, in recent years, social capital has become a key concept for both, pr...
Based on a network model of social capital, we derive a set of hypotheses on the formation of social capital among activists engaging in community-based co-operatives for public service delivery. The hypotheses are subsequently tested in a large-scale questionnaire survey in Austria. The results of our study support the findings of Granovetter (197...
Besides adapting to the environment the enterprise can try to influence the environment, thus enhancing the compatibility of the environment with the strength-weakness profile of the company. This paper explores the question how SMEs are able to influence their regulatory environment through lobbying activities. Firstly, lobbying activities are dis...
This paper aims to investigate the role of trust and test the impact of trust on performance in the context of co-operation between small-and medium-sized enterprises ('SMEs') in a transition country. Based on a sample of 122 Slovenian SMEs, an analysis based on OLS regression reveals that trust does have a strong impact on performance. We thereby...
Creating favourable conditions for SMEs - A comparative study of the rural municipalities' scope of action in Central Europe How can municipalities in Central Europe create favourable conditions for local business? What and how can municipalities learn from each other? How can each individual in the local area contribute? What requirements have to...
