Social Finance and the Commons

The commons is a concept increasingly used by practitioners and social activists with the promise of creating new collective wealth (Bollier & Helfrich, 2014; De Angelis, 2003; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Klein, 2001). In recent years, a variety of scholarly research explained the different ways of organizing commons (Van Laerhoven & Ostrom, 2007). To that end, many streams of inquiry have emerged in various areas: organization theory (Ansari et al. 2013; Fournier, 2013; Tedmanson et al. 2015), institutional economics (Hess, C. & Ostrom, 2011; Ostrom, 1990, 2005, 2010), political philosophy and legal studies (Dardot & Laval, 2014; Holder and Flessas, 2008; Hardt & Negri, 2009), nonprofit studies (Aligica, 2016; Bushouse et al. 2016; Lohmann, 2014, 2016) and business ethics (Argandoña, 1998; Melé, 2009, 2012; O’Brien, 2009; Sison & Fontrodona, 2012; Solomon, 2004). However, these different theories are usually conceived and used separately. Empirical research on commons has mainly focused on natural resources at local and global levels (Ansari et al. 2013; Cody et al. 2015; Cox & Ross, 2011; Galaz et al. 2012; Ostrom, 1990, 2010; Poteete et al. 2010), and also on digital and scientific resources (Benkler, 2006; Boyle, 2008; Cook‐Deegan & Dedeurwaerdere, 2006; Coriat, 2015; Hess & Ostrom, 2011). Despite a long research tradition in local community organizations, there is little empirical scientific knowledge that uses the lens of the commons to study shared resources that are neither natural nor informational in nature. This dissertation aims to fill these gaps by analyzing social finance services and organizations from an interdisciplinary perspective. The aim is to understand whether communities can create financial commons. By analyzing the processes involved, the dissertation sheds light on the social and institutional components enabling the creation of human-made commons. We focus on community organizations linked to the solidarity economy movement in Brazil. Such move
Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion
iiTSE
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished