Place Leadership Research Articles

Place leadership through local planning: integrating urban design and economic development

Place leadership through local planning: integrating urban design and economic development

Humanistic place leadership, cultural enhancement, and change in industrial districts

Drawing inspiration from the works of Fiorenza Belussi on multiple paths of development in local productive systems, the essay contributes to the ongoing debate on factors facilitating such transformations, focusing primarily on industrial districts (IDs) as open learning systems. With specific reference to the Italian context, this paper recalls the delicate balance between socio-cultural and economic elements within IDs transitioning towards new paths of development, crucial for facing the current technological and societal challenges. e essay proposes to look at the possible diffusion of humanistic management (HM) and cultural enhancement of economic strategies, as new triggering factors against lock-in conditions and tendencies toward degradation during phases of ID transformation. HM prioritizes the well-being of individuals and ethical decision-making, aligning with a broader societal purpose. Cultural enhancement, rooted in a common heritage, supports place identity, and suggests bases for multiple specializations. e convergence of HM and cultural enhancement within IDs may offer to renewed place-leaderships levers for strategies of transition pointing to sustainable paths that align with broader societal goals in an era of disrupting challenges.

Legitimacy and place leadership: responding to and recovering from disruption in regional soft spaces

ABSTRACT This article explores through interviews the influence of legitimacy on place leadership within regional soft spaces in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. Legitimacy is an important yet underexamined facet of place leadership. Employing a tripartite legitimacy framework – input, throughput and output legitimacy – we illuminate novel insights on the nature of legitimacy relationships at different boundaries of regional soft spaces and how they shape place leadership over time in a changing context. We further argue that political astuteness is vital for multi-hatting leaders within regional soft spaces to enable cross-boundary mobilisation for collective action in response and recovery from disruption.

Change agency during crises: path development in tourism destinations

ABSTRACT The study explores the role that change agency and regional preconditions play in a region’s path development. To address empirically this research question, the study uses the cases of two destinations in Norway during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research uses quantitative and qualitative data to investigate the industry’s capacity for path development in the face of significant external shocks. The findings reveal marked differences regarding industry adaptation and resilience between the two regions. While one destination struggled with coordination, the other, anchored by the popularity of a major zoo and theme park, demonstrated a more cohesive response. This contrast highlights the pivotal role of regional preconditions and change agency in shaping a destination’s ability to navigate crises. Key conclusions suggest that crises can serve as catalysts for industry development; however, the extent of such transformation is constrained by the regional preconditions, place leadership, and collaboration that a destination can mobilize.

Connecting place and multilevel governance for urban river restoration

ABSTRACT River restoration in urbanising contexts faces multiple pressures and increased governance complexities. The aspiration for basin-scale policy integration has been widely promoted but is not well tested in urbanising rivers and implementation success remains disjointed across jurisdictions. We link the multi-level governance lens with the notion of place to facilitate a deeper examination of the unique assemblages of socio-material configurations that embed restoration practices across locations. Employing an embedded qualitative case study of the Citarum revitalisation in Indonesia, where a territorialised military operation co-existed with multi-level arrangements, we show that variability, rather than consistency, of governance approaches persisted across geographies. The variabilities were shaped by different place-based conditions – critical in influencing restoration practices and governance processes – such as place leadership, attachment to river, neighbourhood stewardships, issue-based networks and a sense of legitimacy. Thus, our study challenges the normative primacy of the basin-scale integration in existing water governance research and policy, while offering a more robust and critical approach towards gathering place-based insights and in situ evidence of governance complementarity and inconsistency.

Place-leadership and power in the futures domain: the case of Euskadi 2040

ABSTRACT In an era when uncertainty and complexity are more tangible than ever, decision-makers are under pressure to turn from short-term politics and departmentalization to safeguard not only current wellbeing but also the wellbeing of future generations via longer term planning and visioning. In regions, as multilevel governance systems, no actor has the power to determine the decisions of others. Place leadership demands the mobilization of different actors to define an effective strategy for future development, by combining institutional, interpretive and network power in a dynamic manner. This paper reflects on how leadership and power shape shared vision in regional foresight processes, and the role of academic knowledge. We conduct an in-depth single case study analysis of ‘Euskadi 2040’, the visioning initiative launched by the Basque regional government in collaboration with the research institute Orkestra. We articulate five main contributions of research institutes: facilitating the systemic character of the vision; incorporating academic action-oriented knowledge; supporting the divergence from traditional linear planning paradigms towards flexible learning-centred approaches to policy; promoting an interinstitutional and multi-agent shared discourse; and lastly, leveraging knowledge transfer within international networks.

Missing Transformational Place Leadership-Why High-Tech Industries are not Developed in Hong Kong

This paper adopts a place leadership perspective to examine the failed efforts of developing high-tech industries in Hong Kong. It demonstrates that it is challenging to change from transactional to transformational leadership and argues that the failure of developing high-tech industries in Hong Kong is partially attributable to the lack of transformational political and business leaderships. The political leaders' ineffectiveness in developing hightech industries in Hong Kong is also attributable to the regional/national/international institutional structural forces that have created both opportunities and challenges. This study contributes to the discussion on the critical value of transformational place leadership for creating new local/regional economic growth path and the embeddedness of place leadership in local/regional/national political and economic institutions.

Mitigating destructive deviance in organisations: assessing the role of perceived HRM practices and perceived organisational support

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to empirically examine how the seven human resource management (HRM) practises, namely, leadership development, professional investment, egalitarian practises, developmental appraisals, family-friendly practises, engagement practises and generous benefits, are associated with perceived organisational support (POS) and destructive deviance in the context of Indian organisational culture.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 265 middle-level IT personnel provided the study's data. To test the suggested study hypotheses, confirmatory factor analysis and PROCESS Macros were used.FindingsResults show that putting in place leadership development, professional investment, egalitarian practises, developmental appraisal, family-friendly practises, engagement practises and generous benefits generates POS that, in turn, significantly contributes to reducing destructive deviance. Additionally, POS was found to partially mediate the relationship between perceived HRM practises and destructive deviance.Research limitations/implicationsThe results would help firms reduce detrimental employee deviation. To do this, managers must develop and put into effect the seven HRM practises, which demonstrate to workers that the organisation appreciates their contributions and cares about their well-being, thereby lowering disruptive deviance. In essence, IT businesses should carefully plan and implement the HRM practises they expressly want to use rather than mindlessly copying those of rival organisations. Furthermore, to adapt to the workforce's evolving needs, these HRM practises must be properly matched with both individual and organisational goals.Originality/valueBy including destructive deviance as a result of POS, this study adds to the body of research on organisational support theory. The literature on POS and negative behaviours will take a new turn with such a focus on destructive deviance. Additionally, this study encourages academics to investigate an underlying mechanism that accounts for how HRM practises affect employees' conduct. This study also adds to the sparse body of knowledge on POS for non-Western workers. The study's findings confirm that POS is a crucial concept for both Asian and Western workers.

Carving a place for UK business improvement districts through COVID: exploring industry responses and practices during the pandemic

PurposeThis study aims to explore UK Business Improvement Districts' (BIDs) responses and practices to the COVID crisis and evaluates how these influenced their organisational identity. The paper aims to highlight the possible shift in BIDs' operations that can lead to their positioning as integral facilitators of place management initiatives in their local areas.Design/methodology/approachThe authors stress the confused nature of BID identity and highlight how BID activities and business plans correspond to subsequent crises through the lens of crisis management and disaster management frameworks. A mixed-methods, exploratory, sequential approach was taken, incorporating interviews and survey responses from UK BID managers in two distinct phases between October and December 2020.FindingsThe findings of the study suggest a greater emphasis on communication strategies and the formation of partnerships during the lockdown periods, along with a renewed understanding of a BID's role towards place leadership, resilience and public safety.Practical implicationsThe practical implications of this work show a shift in BID business practices, programmes and services and highlight the need to establish a set of industry standards and best practices with enhanced place leadership responsibilities.Originality/valueThe research provides a detailed snapshot of the UK BID industry during the COVID crisis and shows the possibility for BIDs to reframe their identity as locally bound, place-based organisations that have a more direct role in place management.

Successful clusters through successful communication: why clusters should be managed by Place Leaders

Communication is critical in a wide variety of fields. Successful intra-organizational communication plays a significant role in building trust by creating an environment that empowers leaders to lead effectively, motivates employees to work, and thus contributes to organizational performance. In the context of cluster management, communication within the cluster, especially between the cluster leadership and the often vast number of cluster members, plays a pivotal role in successful and effective cluster development. A cluster typically operates in a regional context characterized by multi-agent, multi-objective, multi-vision, and pluralistic processes, methods, competencies, expertise, and aims. Cluster leadership is usually associated with particular difficulties in addressing these challenges. The primary needs and demands to fulfill such a role are to bring together a large number of partly competing actors involved in a cluster, to build up a trustful and open network, to include different cultures, and to harmonize institutional agendas. The main aim is to develop and establish a common ground to communicate and coordinate joint work efforts, which can mutually benefit and create synergies. The present article conceptualizes Effective internal Cluster Communication and Place Leadership as determinants for successful cluster developments. Despite the multiplicity of actors and sometimes even competing interest groups, Effective Place Leader Cluster Communication (EPLCC) enables clusters to inspire common, cooperative, collaborative and synergetic ways of working together. This is key to cluster development, successful and goal-directed cluster operation, and a sustainable operation of the cluster.

Developing a tourism region through tourism and culture: bordering, branding, placemaking and governance processes

ABSTRACT China’s pre-pandemic national-level planning advocated a combination of culture and tourism to advance growth in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) mega-region. Culture is seen as increasing regional cohesion, with multi-destination travel products connecting subregions and cities. This paper examines perceptions of progress towards a coherent GBA cultural identity and its implications for tourism. We examine tourism stakeholder perceptions of the GBA, assess the prospects for the development of collective identities in the region and assess the prospects for implementation of the GBA brand. Surveys and interviews with stakeholders indicate that the prevalent top-down planning approach has so far generated limited regional coherence and may also be limiting bottom-up placemaking initiatives. Debordering between Hong Kong, Macao and the mainland cities offers opportunities for tourism development, but these have so far been limited, also because of intensifying competition between mainland GBA cities in international markets, challenging the implementation of an umbrella brand. Regional stakeholders so far show little buy-in to the overarching ‘quality living circle’ concept for the GBA. New governance structures may be to support the development of a coherent regional identity and generate place leadership to successfully combine top-down and bottom-up placemaking initiatives.

Sightseeing the Outcome of Leadership’s Crucial Domains of Responsibility Concomitant to Beninese EFL Learners’ Performance

Handling human beings and especially highly educated ones is not a stress-free undertaking in any society due to the numerous whims from every single individual, which can affect negatively the process of teaching and learning no matter the country. The objective of this study is to examine fundamentally the consequences of a certain number of leadership’s vital domains of requirement simultaneous to EFL students’ performances in Benin. The research is identified through the combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods used. Teachers and students’ surveys and observation sheets have been applied to gather information about leadership’s crucial domains of responsibility importance in EFL classes. The questionnaire has been administered to 10 EFL lecturers, 7 collected, 24 EFL teachers, 15 collected, and 44 university EFL students, 33 collected, the research population is 55 with the sample size 48. 10 experienced educators have been interviewed with the sample size 10, and 6 classes observed in the target language teaching and learning context, the sample size being 6. The main results reveal the high place leadership occupies in education and especially in language teaching and more specifically in EFL teaching and learning. It can chiefly be suggested that educators recognise the unavoidable need to receive effective trainings and undergo frequent seminars and workshops in leadership so as to cope successfully with adequate management in educational centres and elsewhere.

SDG localization: Mobilizing the Potential of Place Leadership Through Collective Impact and Mission-Oriented Innovation Methodologies

ABSTRACT The wellbeing of people, places and the planet relies upon our collective ability to resolve the grand challenges framed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper focuses on opportunities for place leadership theorizing and practice to progress localization as one pathway to advance the SDGs. It seeks to bridge the theory-practice divide that currently limits the utility of place leadership research by highlighting two implementation methodologies – Collective Impact (CI) and Mission-oriented Innovation (MOI). These methodologies have gathered momentum amongst practitioners but received comparatively little academic attention. We argue that both methodologies have potential to support place leaders to address key barriers to SDG localization, particularly, centring equity, enacting multi-stakeholder partnerships, generating data and stories, and contributing to systems change. This paper suggests that future place leadership theorizing should learn from and support CI and MOI practice and contribute to collective efforts to localize the transformational change envisioned by the SDGs. MAD statement Drawing upon practitioner and theoretical literatures this paper identifies critical opportunities to advance both SDG localization and place leadership theory by leveraging and learning from the rapidly growing body of Collective Impact (CI) and Mission-oriented Innovation (MOI) initiatives globally. An analysis of these relatively under-studied methodologies is offered and opportunities to apply or learn from them to overcome key barriers to SDG localization are identified. The paper also offers suggestions as to how place leadership theory could, in turn, enhance the continued maturation of CI and MOI and advance SDG localization.

Place Leadership in Social Accountability Initiatives

ABSTRACT This paper explores how social movement and civic actors enact and contribute to place leadership. It does so by examining how social movement organizations in South Africa use social audits to investigate and challenge government accountability and service delivery failures. The paper describes the meaning-making practices evident in social audit reports, and detail how social audit actors construct issues and positions through three framings – rights, regulations and lived realities. In this process, they leverage rights discourses and governance arrangements to legitimize their place leadership, and draw on multiple aspects and experiences of place to expose failures of governance and in the realization of rights. Through the dynamic interplay between legitimizing and exposing, they translate embodied realities and relations in and of place into a sense of purpose and direction for mobilizing a wider network of governance actors. On this basis, the paper contributes a social accountability perspective to place leadership studies. MAD statement This paper aims to Make a Difference (MAD) by exploring how social movement actors contribute to collective place leadership through constructing and contesting the meanings of local governance issues and relationships. The paper highlights how social movement actors illuminate place as the objective and measurable built environment, and as subjectively experienced and constituted as places of heritage and community but also dislocation and trauma. That they use social audits to interrogate governance failures and legitimize communities’ situated knowledge suggests such social accountability initiatives offer a space for place leadership outside of but also interacting with broader governance networks.

Leading Change in Communities Experiencing Economic Transition: Place Leadership, Expectations, and Industry Closure

ABSTRACT This paper considers the nature, origins and expression of place leadership in communities undergoing large-scale economic transformation. It examines where people look for leadership in the management of the places where they live, and how their perspectives are affected by an adverse event. It documents community attitudes on the influence those who occupy positions of authority have been able to exert on this transition, drawing on perceptions from places affected by the shutdown of the Australian automotive industry in the second decade of the twenty-first century. It seeks to understand which individuals and roles were seen to be influential in leading this process of change. This article gains insights into how leaders have an impact, and where this ability to effect change comes from. It does so with reference to the structural conditions embedded within Australian political life and the way leadership finds expression in periods of uncertainty and transformation. The paper finds communities are acutely aware of where the power to lead change resides, but concerns with the efficacy of that leadership have contributed to discontent. A greater focus on further empowering local leadership while delivering on long term expectations would have resulted in more positive perceptions. MAD statement This paper answers the question, how can local leaders manage large-scale, disruptive change such as the closure of a major employer or the shutdown of an entire industry? The paper makes clear that different types of leaders need to respond in varied ways, depending on their source of authority, their degree of connection to the affected community and the nature of the shock experienced by the local economy. Senior government leaders need to map out and deliver a roadmap for economic recovery, social service providers need to be responsive to local needs and those leaders living in the community must continue to strengthen social networks.

The Limits of Change Agency: Establishing a Peripheral University Campus in East Tyrol

Many peripheral regions aim to upgrade their knowledge base by attracting universities to increase their competitiveness, but also to tackle emigration and demographic ageing. However, the successful implementation of a peripheral university campus is challenging. Usually, generous public financial support is necessary, putting pressure on locations that do not develop as intended. Hence, the setup of the regional place leadership and the different forms of agency are crucial. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this paper provides a case study based on the Technik Campus Lienz, a peripheral satellite campus in East Tyrol/Austria, which has failed to meet the expectations of regional and extra-regional policymakers. It identifies different phases of agency and develops a framework of agentic and structural misalignments, providing important insights for peripheral regions with similar ambitions.

Corporate responsibility and place leadership in rural digitalization: the case of Hidden Champions

ABSTRACT We examine the role of Hidden Champions in rural areas in advancing regional digitalization through corporate local and regional responsibility and place leadership. Endowed with abundant internal resources and high innovative capacity, these global niche market leaders face regional resource constraints, concerning digital infrastructure and workforce with digital capabilities. 57 semi-structured interviews with firm representatives and regional actors in rural Germany are analyzed. We show that these enterprises strategically use measures of corporate local and regional responsibility and exert place leadership to develop digitalization-related assets in their rural regions. These initiatives are operated through modes of both inclusive and exclusive agency and benefit. We find that the motives for these actions are grounded in a perceived lack of swiftness and capacity of public actors, but also entail emotional attachment to the region, particularly for family businesses. Our findings have implications for regional policymakers, such as targeting greater alignment of regional and corporate development goals.

Do voluntary civic engagement and non-profit leadership challenge local political leadership in urban development?

ABSTRACT EU policies support a place-based approach with the increasing role of local partners in political decision-making. The current crisis of formal political leadership raises the question of whether or not formal leadership is becoming dispersed and informal place leadership can succeed in filling the vacuum. Based on data from the implementation of 58 EU-funded Integrated Urban Development Plans in Czechia, we found that informal leadership is challenging formal local political leadership. Nevertheless, its success has been limited in obtaining political legitimacy due to missing dialogue between the local movements and nonprofit leaders when searching for solutions to local problems.

What can city leaders do for climate change? Insights from the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group network

ABSTRACT This paper sheds light on what city leaders can do about climate change in the context of the complex extra-territorial challenges they face. We created an original database of those actions implemented by members of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and investigated which boundary organizations, objects and experiences (‘boundary cooperative arrangements’) can be triggered to undertake climate change actions by city leaders. Through a secondary qualitative analysis, we identified six main actions. The research advances knowledge on both place leadership and collaborative governance, and the findings represent a tool for better tackling the ‘wicked problem’ of climate change.

‘You can’t Google everything’: the voluntary sector and the leadership of communities of place

Responding directly to the themes of the Special Issue, this paper addresses a surprising absence to date of the voluntary sector’s important role in the constitution of place leadership. Drawing on an empirical study of locally rooted voluntary sector organisations in a district of the Midlands of England, we aim to untangle the complex relationship between leadership, place and the voluntary sector, building on recent advances in the collective and critical approaches to leadership studies. A thematic analysis of a rich qualitative dataset highlighted three core themes of the voluntary sector contribution to collective place leadership: their ability to draw on and mobilise local knowledge, their positioning in a web of dense local relationships, and the notion that their intrinsic characteristics are a key source of their distinctiveness and value to the local governance network that constitutes the district’s place leadership. In addition to contributing to a nuanced understanding of the voluntary sector’s place in both the leadership and place leadership studies corpus, our findings shed light on the multiplexity and tensions of leading in the collective, as well as the extent to which the voluntary sector is constrained by wider structures and macro-dynamics.