Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2019.1696694
How to boost clusters and regional change through cooperative social innovation
Juan Ramón Gallego-Bono
Rafael Chaves-Avila
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to illustrate how social innovation is promoted
and spread by cooperative clusters in order to develop
regional change. This paper focuses on the main drivers of the
spreading and exaptation processes of social innovation. The
cooperative cluster model, the exaptation concept, the top-down
approach, the meso-institutions concept and the meso-level perspective
are used to capture the strategic approach of spreading
social innovation. The study analyses two successful clusters:
Mondragon, made up of industrial SMEs, and Anecoop, an agricultural
cooperative group, both leading clusters in their respective
region. Qualitative methodology is used to compare both case
studies. Among the findings, this paper is one of the first
attempts to explain the territorial institutionalisation of social
innovations by way of their exaptation. It presents adaptation and
exaptation as distinct but partly sequential processes: the adaptation
of social innovations in cooperative clusters paves the way
for the subsequent leap via exaptation of these innovations in
the whole of the territory.
Keywords
Social innovation; clusters; institutional exaptation; cooperatives; Mondragon; Anecoop; regional change
Hrčak ID:
254701
URI
Publication date:
9.2.2021.
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