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Political Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), based on ideas about deliberative democracy, have been criticised for increasing corporate power and democratic deficits. Yet, deliberative ideals are flourishing in the corporate world in the form of dialogues with a broad set of stakeholders and engagement in wider societal issues. Extractive industry areas, with extensive corporate interventions in weak regulatory environments, are particularly vulnerable to asymmetrical power relations when businesses engage with society. This paper aims to illustrate in what way deliberative CSR practices in such contexts risk enhancing corporate power at the expense of community interests.

This paper is based on a retrospective qualitative study of a Canadian oil company, operating in an Albanian oilfield between 2009 and 2016. Through a study of three different deliberative CSR practices – market-based land acquisition, a grievance redress mechanism and dialogue groups – it highlights how these practices in various ways enforced corporate interests and prevented further community mobilisation.

By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of hegemony, the analysis highlights how deliberative CSR activities isolated and silenced community demands, moved some community members into the corporate alliance and prevented alternative visions of the area to be articulated. In particular, the close connection between deliberative practices and monetary compensation flows is underlined in this dynamic.

The paper contributes to critical scholarship on political CSR by highlighting in what way deliberative practices, linked to monetary compensation schemes, enforce corporate hegemony by moving community members over to the corporate alliance.

Through the reconstruction of the events of some foreign entrepreneurs who worked in the territory of the Italian city of Bari in the first half of the 19th century, this paper aims to analyze the role of entrepreneurial migration in the economic development of Apulia land in this period.

This study adopts a theoretical framework that combines the concept of mixed embeddedness in a multifocal perspective, with the model of the diffusion of innovation focusing on the role of the so-called agency of actors, and of the network, in the dissemination of innovation. The theoretical framework is applied to multiple case studies to compare the evidence that emerged from the simultaneous analysis of several situations.

By analyzing how innovations have spread within the network of entrepreneurs of that time, it is possible to identify some relevant aspects related to the mechanisms of dissemination of innovations in the context of entrepreneurial migration. Specifically, the opportunity structure is intended in an even broader sense than indicated in the classic approach to mixed embeddedness: it is considered as the result of the joint interaction of the political, institutional and economic context of several places, and the behavioral dynamics of several groups.

Due to the specific method chosen, the outcomes of the research might apply to a narrow context. Therefore, the results need to be tested and confirmed in further empirical studies, and by applying multiple research methods.

Findings are useful and significant in the analysis of the link that exists between the diffusion of innovations and migrant entrepreneurship, and then the conclusions can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations, with specific reference to developing countries.

Findings can be applied and extended to the current phenomenon of migration-related innovations and highly skilled migration, with specific reference to developing countries.

This paper contributes to shed new light on the contextual and multifocal factors that influence the development of innovations in the networks of migrant entrepreneurship, in a specific historical period and a specific context. Combining social, human and financial capital with the wider opportunity structure, this study also provides a comprehensive understanding of the modalities through which migrant and high-skilled entrepreneurs could innovate.

The aim of this paper is to provide insights and knowledge about the motivations and implications for social enterprises' participation in SIBs, particularly in terms of collaboration and partnership with the public sector, as well as the different positions on this issue. The overall aim, therefore, is to show how social enterprises and public organisations have interacted in the context of SIBs and what has been achieved by participating.

This multiple case study approach applies qualitative methods like observations and semi-structured and unstructured interviews.

The study shows that SIBs can be an option for financing social enterprises within a strategy of income diversification and resource dependency. Despite tensions and complexities, SIBs can renew the traditional funding relationship by adding innovation, strengthening the co-creation process and creating a stable relationship.

Research findings may lack generalisability due to the specific context in which the case study is rooted.

The paper offers practical implications in terms of insights and suggestions for social enterprises and the public sector interested in developing the scheme.

This paper adds the voice and perspective of social enterprises on the relationship with the public sector within the framework of SIBs initiatives.

Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by international donors in the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast in August 2020, in order to examine the effectiveness of its inclusive decision-making architecture, as well as its institutional building and legislative reform efforts.

The paper uses the case study approaach and relies on two original data sets compiled by authors, using desk reviews of academic literature and secondary data, in addition to 24 semi-structured expert interviews and participant observation for two years.

The aid platform appears innovative, participatory and effectively functioning toward recovery and reform. However, in practice, the government dismisses CSOs, undermines reforms and dodges state building, whereas the 3RF is structured in incoherent ways and operates according to conflicting logics, generating inertia and pitfalls that hinder effective participatory governance, prevent institutional building, and delay the making of projects.

The research contributes to critical scholarship as it addresses an important research gap concerning disaster aid platforms’ institutional design and governance that are under-studied in critical disaster studies and political studies. It also highlights the need for critical disaster studies to engage with state theory and vice-versa.

The research contributes to evaluations of disaster recovery processes and outcomes. It highlights the limits of disaster aid platforms’ claims for participatory decision-making, institutional-building and reforms.

The paper amplifies critical disaster studies, through the reflexive analysis of a case-study of an aid platform.

Sustainability is a pressing challenge of governance and public financial management. One key element of sustainable governance is the role of citizens. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a participatory tool with which citizens can influence public administration. PB is a democratic process that grants people real power over real money and it has spread around the world. This special issue explores the role of PB in the context of sustainable governance. In this editorial, the authors aim to approach PB as a form of sustainable governance.

In this editorial, the authors collaborate in the analysis of how PB is implicated in the public management of complex social, economic and ecological issues. The authors identify key dimensions of internal and external sustainability based on prior research. The authors approach these dimensions as an internal–external nexus of sustainable governance in which organizational and financial sustainability are the internal dimensions and socio-political and environmental sustainability are the external dimensions.

Even though PB can be seen as one tool for citizen participation, it has the potential to foster sustainability in multiple ways. PB, as a form of sustainable governance, requires a financially and administratively sustainable organizational process that results in the institutionalization of PB. It also includes thorough consideration of socio-political and environmental sustainability impacts of PB.

Academics are actively studying PB from various perspectives. However, most of this work has approached PB from the viewpoints of design and results of PB, and less is known about its institutional settings. PB has not yet been adequately studied in the context of sustainability, and there is a need to scrutinize PB as a form of sustainable governance.

This study analyses interlocking directorates from the perspective of an emerging market, Mexico, where formal institutions are weak, and family firms with high ownership concentration dominate. It responds to recent calls in the literature on interlocks, which urge the differentiation between family and non-family businesses and to complete more research on emerging economies.

A database was constructed for 89 non-financial companies (52 family-owned) listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) from 2001 to 2014. This period includes normal times and an episode of financial crisis (2009–2010). To test the hypotheses, a dynamic panel model (in two stages) is used, applying GMM.

In normal times, the advantages of Board Chairman (COB) interlocks for the performance of publicly traded Mexican family firms are obtained regardless of the weak formal institutional environment. By contrast, during financial crisis, interlocking family COBs are more likely to jointly expropriate minority shareholders with actions that further their family objectives, which mitigates the positive effect of interlocks on performance. These findings contrast with the insignificant effects of COB interlocks found for non-family corporates.

A new framework is proposed which, through agency theory, finds points of concordance among resource dependence and class hegemony theories, to understand the effect of interlocking directorates on the performance of family firms operating in Mexico. The results of the empirical exercise for family companies listed on BMV during normal and financial crisis periods suggest its applicability.

By adopting network analytic techniques, this paper aims to examine interlocking directorates among firms operating in the hospitality services sector in seven major Italian tourism destinations.

The authors collected information for all the hotel corporations whose headquarters are located in the seven top Italian destinations: Florence, Milan, Naples, Rimini, Rome, Turin and Venice. Data come from the Analisi Informatizzata delle Aziende Italiane database by Bureau Van Dijk and were used to build a network where the nodes are board members (people) and corporations (hotels) and the links represent the membership of individuals in the boards. From this, with a one-mode projection, the authors obtain two networks: people and corporations. The overall networks’ structures are analysed by assessing their connectivity characteristics.

The findings indicate a relatively low number of interlocks that signals a high degree of fragmentation, showing that the interconnections (both within and between destinations) are scarce. This suggests that in absence of formalized cooperation arrangements, corporations might collaborate informally.

This work extends previous research on complexity in business settings, focusing specifically on service companies whose output depends on multiple interactions and helps clarifying coopetition practices of hospitality service firms. Policymaking perspectives are discussed as well as managerial viewpoints.

Not many studies of the interlocking directorates in the hospitality domain exist. This paper uses network analysis for a better understanding of the cooperative practices and the formal social structures of the Italian hospitality industry and derives a series of implications important for both researchers and practitioners while also looking at potential future studies.

Participatory budgeting's (PB’s) proponents hope that bringing development projects to historically underserved communities will improve well-being by extending infrastructure and services. This article details the logic connecting PB to well-being, describes the evolution of PB programs as they spread around the world and consolidates global evidence from research that tests hypotheses on PB's impact. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

Unstructured literature review and comparative case study across five global regions.

The authors find evidence for PB's impact on well-being in several important contexts, mostly not only in Brazil, but also in Peru and South Korea. They also find that very few rigorous, large-N, comparative studies have evaluated the relationship between PB and well-being and that the prospects for social accountability and PB's sustainability for well-being are not equally strong in all contexts. They argue that PB has great potential to improve well-being, but program designs, operational rules and supporting local conditions must be favorable to realize that potential.

This is one of the few efforts to build theory on where and why the authors would expect to observe relationships between PB and well-being. It is also one of the first to consolidate global evidence on PB's impact.