The implications of the EU cohesion policy instruments and cross-border cooperation projects on social entrepreneurship in Euroregions

Abstract

The current paper investigates the implications of the EU Cohesion Policy instrument Interreg through the implementation of cross-border cooperation projects on social entrepreneurship. Cross-border cooperation projects are implemented in Euroregions and invest in new knowledge and innovative solutions in policy priorities spread over social, environmental, and economic domains. Policy priorities in social and environmental domains overlap fields of play where social entrepreneurs operate. We build on the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship and use a quantitative design to investigate the influence of EU-funded cross-border cooperation projects on the number of social enterprises in Luxembourg. We employed a rolling window analysis with ARIMA on a sample of 207 cross-border cooperation projects implemented between 2000 and 2020. We predicted social entrepreneurial activity in Euroregions in Luxembourg using investments through the EU Cohesion Policy in the social, environmental, and economic domains and identified a positive relationship in the social domain. The current study shows that investments in the social domain positively and significantly predict social entrepreneurial activity, supporting the critical role of the EU Cohesion Policy on social entrepreneurship. Our study discusses how social entrepreneurship can benefit from EU cross-border cooperation projects as recipients of potential knowledge spillovers.