Search results

This paper aims to document the nature of social enterprise models in Australia, their evolution and institutional drivers.

The paper draws on secondary analysis of source materials and the existing literature on social enterprise in Australia. Analysis was verified through consultation with key actors in the social enterprise ecosystem.

With its historical roots in an enterprising non-profit sector and the presence of cooperative and mutual businesses, the practice of social enterprise in Australia is relatively mature. Yet, the language of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship remains marginal and contested. The nature of social enterprise activity in Australia reflects the role of an internally diverse civil society within an economically privileged society and in response to an increasingly residualised welfare state. Australia’s geography and demography have also played determining roles in the function and presence of social enterprise, particularly in rural and remote communities.

The paper contributes to comparative understandings of social enterprise and provides the first detailed account of social enterprise development in Australia.

This paper aims to draw on Seamon’s(2012a, 2012b, 2014, 2015, 2018) theories on the “processes of place attachment” to understand the influence of place attachment on community leadership and the management of four towns in the Barossa region of South Australia.

The research methodology combines photo-elicitation, participant observation and in-depth interviews with 12 community leaders across four town groups. Scannell and Gifford’s(2010) tripartite model for place attachment is used to segment qualitative interview data to understand the nature of place attachment of community leaders. This was followed by thematic analysis using Seamon’s(2012a, 2014, 2018) six processes of place attachment to understand how the dynamics of place attachment as a series of processes interact to influence community leadership and place-based action.

The research revealed that community leaders in the Barossa region regularly confront a tension between the “Being” and “Becoming” of Place. It also suggests that place attachment for new residents is accelerated by engaging multiple place attachment processes; these can be measured using the research methodology in this study. The result is a tipping point where place leadership from new residents can accelerate towards the “Being of Place” showing a tendency towards protectionist behaviour commonly seen amongst long-term residents.

Testing the findings in this paper in other rural regions and other cultural contexts will add further insight and validation of these findings. It is recommended that future research could further develop this approach through engaging multiple place-based community groups in the same town and across different locations to understand the pattern language of communities with more accuracy.

This study has enabled a deeper understanding of place-based community groups and their motivations to protect the status quo or promote change in the development and management of the place. Each community requires a tailored approach to place management and development to activate community resources and partnerships successfully. This research also provides knowledge on how to accelerate place attachment for new residents to improve their sense of belonging, value and purpose by engaging programs that engage all six place attachment processes.

The research reveals that place relations are dynamic, complex and often political. Rural towns display a pattern language for how they engage networks and resources that government needs to understand to engage community stewardship of place – its social, environmental and economic setting. This research offers a method to better understand the pattern language of place attachment that drives community leadership and place management to help communities sustain themselves and adapt to change.

The research explores the inter-relationship between the place attachment of community leaders and their response to change from different types of community impacts such as bushfires or the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding these processes is valuable in informing place management partnerships between community, business and government.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and make sense of the confluence of theoretical and practical preoccupations that contribute to the current interest in place management.

The paper presents an overview and interpretation of trends that have led both policy‐makers and academics to an interest in the management and development of places. It demonstrates how various streams of thought coalesce into five key concepts: participation, distinctiveness, knowledge, relationships and values – that provide, at their meeting point, a cross‐disciplinary conceptual framework for place management and development.

The field of place management is located – both strategically and challengingly – at the crux of key contemporary policy issues in development and governance. There is a need to draw together insights across disciplines into a conceptual framework that will help both practitioners and academics make sense of the challenges we face.

Understanding where we have come from helps them to chart where we are going. There is opportunity to build a new a theoretical and policy framework around place management that articulates why and how place is important in the context of larger development and governance debates.

As a big‐picture overview of a cutting‐edge space, this paper is intended to help both practitioners and academics position their work in its broader context.

The purpose of this paper is to review the growing emphasis on quantifiable performance measures such as social return on investment (SROI) in third sector organisations – specifically, social enterprise – through a legitimacy theory lens. It then examines what social enterprises value (i.e. consider important) in terms of performance evaluation, using a case study approach.

Case studies involving interviews, documentary analysis, and observation, of three social enterprises at different life-cycle stages with different funding structures, were constructed to consider “what measures matter” from a practitioner's perspective.

Findings highlight a priority on quality outcomes and impacts in primarily qualitative terms to evaluate performance. Further, there is a noticeable lack of emphasis on financial measures other than basic access to financial resources to continue pursuing social goals.

The practical challenges faced by social enterprises – many of which are small to medium sized – in evaluating performance and by implication organisational legitimacy are contrasted with measures such as SROI which are resource intensive and have inherent methodological limitations. Hence, findings suggest the limited and valuable resources of social enterprises would be better allocated towards documenting the actual outcomes and impacts as a first step, in order to evaluate social and financial performance in terms appropriate to each objective, in order to demonstrate organisational legitimacy.

Findings distinguish between processes which may hold symbolic legitimacy for select stakeholder groups, and processes which hold substantive, cognitive legitimacy for stakeholders more broadly, in the under-researched context of social enterprise.

This paper discusses the notion of authenticity and the role of local creatives in the place branding process based on a case study of Mtns Made, a brand for the creative industries in the Blue Mountains of Sydney, Australia. This paper aims to examine the development, implementation and management of a place brand from the ground-up and explore the implications for a situated place branding practice.

The concept of brand culture was used as a theoretical lens to view place branding. A qualitative case study approach was taken, incorporating the collection of primary and secondary documents, observation of online platforms and real-world events, field notes and personal reflection from an insider position.

The findings of this study suggest that local creatives can and have played a central role in place branding. The study also illustrates a model for place branding that centres on stakeholder participation in an ongoing process.

Local culture and creativity are largely viewed as assets for place branding; this paper draws attention to the agency of local creatives in the place branding process. This study offers three pillars of place brand authenticity and establishes a framework for place brand analysis based on a branding design strategy.