Rural–Urban Features of Social Innovation: An Exploratory Study of Work Integration Social Enterprises in Ireland

Lucas Olmedo (), María José Ruiz-Rivera, Mary O’Shaughnessy and Georgios Chatzichristos
Additional contact information
Lucas Olmedo: Department of Food Business and Development, Cork University Business School, University College Cork, T12 K8AF Cork, Ireland
María José Ruiz-Rivera: CIRTES, Université catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Mary O’Shaughnessy: Department of Food Business and Development, Cork University Business School, University College Cork, T12 K8AF Cork, Ireland
Georgios Chatzichristos: School of Political Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

Societies, 2024, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: Geography is a significant element of social innovation. This paper focuses on exploring differences and similarities in the characteristics and contributions towards impact of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs), a form of social innovation which provides otherwise unmet services and opportunities to people at risk of social and economic exclusion and distant from the labour market, in rural and urban areas of Ireland. To do so, we use data from 336 surveys from urban (213) and rural (123) WISEs and conduct an exploratory and spatially sensitive analysis to compare the characteristics, in terms of organisational age, legal and governance form, multiplicity of activities, revenue diversification; and contributions towards impact, in terms of geographical focus/reach, employment, volunteers, and income generation. Our analysis shows that WISEs in urban and rural areas present rather similar organisational characteristics and ways of functioning (legal structure, multiactivity, multiple sources of funding), but their contributions to socioeconomic impact differ according to their spatial location, with urban WISEs generating significantly more employment and income than their rural counterparts. Our study illustrates that socially innovative organisations are spatially sensitive, and that context influences their capacity to create sustainable employment opportunities and contribute to the local economy.

Keywords: work integration social enterprises; social innovation; rural; urban; social economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 P P0 P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 Z1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/14/6/82/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/14/6/82/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:14:y:2024:i:6:p:82-:d:1409081

Access Statistics for this article

Societies is currently edited by Ms. Farrah Sun

More articles in Societies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().