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Social finance and the commons paradigm: Exploring how community-based innovations transform finance for the common good

Camille Meyer (Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa) (Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada)

Management Decision

ISSN: 0025-1747

Article publication date: 19 September 2019

Issue publication date: 17 March 2020

548

Abstract

Purpose

The concept of the commons, or common goods, is becoming increasingly widespread in the world of research and among civil society. The commons are defined as resources that are shared and collectively managed by communities of users, such as natural commons (e.g. fisheries, the climate) and knowledge commons (e.g. Wikipedia, open-source software). The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents the findings of the PhD dissertation “Social finance and the commons,” recipient of the 2017 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award, category Management and Governance, sponsored by Management Decision. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective of the commons, this dissertation investigates how community enterprises govern financial resources as commons to serve the common good. To do so, it builds on data collected on community development banks in Brazil and complementary currencies in multiple countries.

Findings

The findings explain how collective action favors the implementation of new forms of governance and management potentially enabling finance to create and support communities. In doing so, this dissertation provides insights on the transformative power of some governance features for the creation of commons.

Originality/value

This dissertation advances theoretical and conceptual foundations for a theory of the commons in management sciences. It contributes to a new conceptualization of the commons, especially by extending the concept of commons to finance and showing the variety of commons according to governance structures and values. It also generates theoretical insights into social and community entrepreneurship research through an in-depth investigation of social finance organizations.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author warmly thank Patrick Murphy, Marek Hudon, Monika Winn, Tina Dacin, Helen Haugh, Marc Labie, Frédéric Louault and Ariane Szafarz for their support and comments on this research project. The author also acknowledge the CERMi and the F.R.S.-FNRS that funded the author’s doctoral fellowship. Part of this research was conducted while the author was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation (CSSI) at the Gustavson School of Business. CSSI receives funding from Newmont Goldcorp Inc.

Citation

Meyer, C. (2020), "Social finance and the commons paradigm: Exploring how community-based innovations transform finance for the common good", Management Decision, Vol. 58 No. 4, pp. 786-796. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-01-2019-0133

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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