Introduction

The study of social entrepreneurship has received increasing scholarly attention over the last couple of decades. It refers to the entrepreneurial skillfulness of lead individuals who combine resources in new ways, to the aim of meeting social needs (Dacin et al. 2011; Mair and Marti’ 2006). Social entrepreneurs aim to generate both social and economic value in areas ineffectively addressed by existing institutions, and thus are seen as key assets in filling institutional gaps, possibly bringing about transformational change (Schaefer et al. 2015). However, like all forms of change agency geared towards social innovation,Footnote 1 desired outcomes—specifically in terms of effectiveness and sustainability of the entrepreneurial process—are not always met in reality (Alvord et al. 2004).

Against this background, novel approaches are called for, to critically reflect upon the processes that shape decisions and actions of social entrepreneurs, by taking into account also the ecosystem boundaries in which they operate (Schaefer et al. 2015). To contribute to this aim, this paper explores the role of resources in enabling and constraining place-based social entrepreneurship. Enabling resources refers to the wide array of assets, both tangible and intangible, social entrepreneurs mobilize and co-create, to launch and bring forward novel initiatives in their places. The assets, skills, affordances, capitals, needed by change agents to foster transformations are conceptualized in various ways (Korsgaard et al. 2015; Mair and Marti’ 2006; Westley et al. 2013). However, a comprehensive understanding and mapping of resources related to place-based social entrepreneurship is not yet available. This paper aims to provide such an in-depth account based on an iterative, participatory research process.

To do so, the emerging field of Green Care in Finland is taken as a case study. Green Care refers to nature-based practices that provide therapeutic, social inclusion, educational, and recreational benefits to different target groups (Sempik et al. 2010). In Europe, practices often develop via innovative grassroots processes driven by place-based entrepreneurship: multiple actors create radically new concepts for existing products and services in both urban and rural areas, through novel cross-sectoral partnerships, and drawing from resources available in places (Hassink et al. 2013). This paper focuses on three specific empirical cases, namely a nature-tourism company, a biodynamic farm, and an ecological sheep and care farm, which are taken as case studies.

This study aims to: (1) provide a state of the art of what scholars consider enabling resources conducive to entrepreneurship in place-based processes; (2) investigate and map the different kinds of resources mobilized by Green Care entrepreneurs in their everyday practices; (3) explore if these resources are regarded as enabling or constraining by the entrepreneurs and other stakeholders; and (4) provide a comprehensive, empirically based overview of enabling resources for place-based social entrepreneurship.

Findings stem from a process of co-production of knowledge involving research participants in successive rounds of iterative reflexive learning. Methods are inspired by participatory action-research principles, and included semi-structured interviews—coupled with participatory mapping exercises, and a co-creation workshop. The process combines a deductive and an inductive approach, since it is both theoretically informed by relevant scholarship and provides an empirical grounded analysis of Green Care entrepreneurial practices.

The next section of the paper reviews the concept of place-based social entrepreneurship as understood by key scholars. Following, I explore how resources are being referred to and articulated by relevant literature on entrepreneurship and place-making. In the third section, first, the overall methodological approach is explained, then the three cases of Green Care are presented, and finally, the iterative, participatory process of data collection and analysis is laid out in detail. In the findings section, a comprehensive overview of enabling resources for Green Care place-based social entrepreneurship is presented. Nine sets of enabling resources are proposed, informed by the literature review and grounded in three successive rounds of data collection and analysis. In the discussion, I touch upon the theoretical implications of such findings vis-à-vis our current knowledge of enabling resources. I conclude by identifying future directions for further research on the matter.

Place-based social entrepreneurship and enabling resources: state of the art

Contextualizing and defining place-based social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship, for a long time considered a vague and poorly defined category of change agency, has in recent years gained relevance in both theoretical and empirical scholarly accounts (Mair and Marti’ 2006). Like all forms of change agency, in sociological terms, social entrepreneurs can be seen as individuals that ‘make things happen’ (Westley et al. 2013, p. 27), actors who imagine alternatives and transform themselves, their relationships and their social contexts (Emirbayer and Mische 1998). Relationships and contexts are crucial to successes and failures of entrepreneurial activity. Indeed, entrepreneurship is not to be seen as an individual achievement, but rather as a collaborative social process (McKeever et al. 2015). In literal terms, social enterprises are business ventures that “create innovative initiatives, build new social arrangements, and mobilize resources in response to […] problems rather than market criteria” (Alvord et al. 2004, p. 262).

Historically, social entrepreneurs have committed to a variety of causes, such as poverty alleviation, nature conservation, health and sanitation, microfinancing and education (Martin and Osberg 2007). The common trait is that both ethical and business intentions concur to the entrepreneurial activity. Surpluses are mostly used to ensure the durability of the initiative and its financial self-sufficiency, or to re-invest in the venture’s social objectives, rather than to maximize profits for shareholders and owners (Dacin et al. 2011; Schaefer et al. 2015). The scope of the practices varies: some are specifically geared towards meeting the needs of marginalized and disadvantaged groups (Alvord et al. 2004), others are concerned with the wellbeing of both humans and ecosystems (Schaefer et al. 2015).

While societal and environmental challenges become increasingly daunting, traditional welfare systems have in many contexts withdrawn from their responsibilities. Social enterprises may contribute to filling such gaps, building local capacities, strengthening cross-sectoral ties, and fostering continuous learning and innovation (Alvord et al. 2004). The potential here is not merely to provide services and products, but also to contribute to altering systems of knowing and acting upon specific challenges, contributing to processes of local socio-economic transformation (Elkington and Hartigan 2008; Mair and Marti’ 2006). Notably, as globalization tears apart the fabric of rural areas, entrepreneurship has been seen by many as a key asset in fostering regional development (Korsgaard et al. 2015; McKeever et al. 2015). With specific reference to the field of Green Care, studies highlight the role of practices in re-thinking traditional health-care provision, in re-establishing virtuous connections across the urban and the rural—including marginalized areas—and in re-framing values around conventional food production, disability, and disempowerment (Sempik et al. 2010).

Scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to understand the process of ‘making things happen’. Change agents were long portrayed as heroes, “jack-of-all-trades” capable of overtly rational and strategic choice, yet atomized from their reality (Antadze and McGowan 2017; Schaefer et al. 2015). Recent studies have demonstrated that actors are embedded in structural contexts of action, which are both temporal and relational fields (Emirbayer and Mische 1998; Ruef and Lounsbury 2007). A relational approach highlights the intricate web of connections and processes that enmesh people and places, actors and their context: entities do not exist on their own, but are co-constructed and co-evolving. Space itself is a product of these entanglements, whereby practices are embedded in a location, but also stretched beyond geographical boundaries (Duff 2011; Massey 2004). It follows that change agency, and thus entrepreneurship, is no innate disposition or ontological characteristic of any special individual or group. Rather, it is a process, constantly in becoming as a result of its embedded and situated nature (Battilana et al. 2009; Pyysiäinen 2011).

Embeddedness allows entrepreneurs to access a whole set of resources in their places, while also leveraging non-local assets conducive to the realizations of their aims (Korsgaard et al. 2015). Embeddedness may also motivate the desire to respond to specific contextual needs, triggered by an intimate knowledge and concern for one’s own place and its community (McKeever et al. 2015). Such line of reasoning goes hand by hand with much literature on place-making and place-shaping, suggesting that place is the privileged locus of many emergent collaborative partnerships (Massey 2004).

Against this background, this study aims to contribute to identifying enabling resources in place-based entrepreneurial action. In doing so, I endorse the idea of entrepreneurship as a socialized and relational process, whereby resources both influence and are influenced by social entrepreneurship.

Green Care practices in Finland as case of place-based entrepreneurship

The emerging field of Green Care practices offers a valuable perspective to analyze the role of enabling resources in place-based entrepreneurship. Green Care is used in Finland as an umbrella termFootnote 2 to refer to a wide array of nature-based activities, ranging from care farming and therapeutic horticulture, to wilderness and animal-assisted therapy (Soini et al. 2011). As in most cases in Europe, practices are mainly initiated at the grassroots level, via the entrepreneurship of multiple actors, who develop new concepts for products and services through novel cross-sectoral partnerships. Initiatives span over different domains, leading to alliances amongst stakeholders across disparate fields, including agriculture, health and social care, tourism, and pedagogy (Hassink et al. 2013). Entrepreneurs rely heavily on resources available in places–ranging from the ecological and cultural value of the landscape, to the capacity building support of local research centersFootnote 3—and mobilize a whole set of skills, more or less enabled by contextual institutional settings. Essential skills certainly include networking and coalition-building capacities, needed to build bridges among very diverse stakeholders’ interests (Di Iacovo et al. 2016; Hassink et al. 2013).

In Finland, Green Care has gained rapid popularity since its introduction in mid-2000, due to its potential to: (a) complement traditional health and social welfare services; (b) expand possibilities for multifunctional agriculture and other rural livelihoods, contributing to regional socio-economic development; (c) advance the sustainable use of natural resources and (d) the preservation of cultural heritage and landscape (Soini et al. 2011).

Evidence-based studies prove that Green Care practices contribute to the therapeutic rehabilitation and social inclusion of vulnerable groups (e.g., long-term unemployed, disabled, refugees, etc.), but may also foster sustainability education for children and adults at large (Sempik et al. 2010). Moreover, many practices are driven by a strong ecological ethics, and may carry beneficial effects also for the ecosystem. This role is reflected in the organic features of most social and care farming initiatives, and by their efforts for biodiversity conservation (Sempik et al. 2010).

Enabling resources: an overview

Enabling resources are understood here as the array of assets, both tangible and intangible, that social entrepreneurs mobilize or create to bring forward novel initiatives in their places. To situate this research in the wider scholarly debate, I carried out a review using a snowballing technique. The starting point of the review was the literature on entrepreneurship that considers embeddedness as an important factor, either to place, community, or to context more in general. Amongst this scholarship, a special attention was given to studies of social and sustainability entrepreneurship. These references give account of the embedded, contextualized, and place-based nature of entrepreneurial practices such as Green Care. In the course of the snowballing, it was deemed useful to consider also complementary sources relevant to transformative agency, especially regarding institutional change and/or rural innovation. In this respect, I also included two studies specifically concerned with care and social farming.

The review does not aim to provide a broad survey of recent literature on the topic of enabling resources for social entrepreneurship. Rather, it is an attempt to consult a variety of sources to gain an overview of the diversity of discourses considered.

Table 1 gives an account of the vitality of the debate on enabling resources for entrepreneurship. A variety of terms are used, including resources, assets, capitals, skills, and opportunities; these concepts are not interpreted in unitary ways, and are made up by different sub-concepts, which make it challenging to draw comparisons or generalizations. For the purpose of the empirical investigation, I distilled two broad sets of enabling resources that could serve as theoretical lenses during the data collection and analysis.

Table 1 Overview of enabling resources for entrepreneurship
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The first cluster of resources is broadly concerned with the personal features of the entrepreneurs. Here, three main attributes can be identified: skills, morality, and affectivity. Skills (and competences) are definitely predominant in the studies considered, and social skills in particular. Among the latter, crucial to the entrepreneurial process seem to be rhetorical skills, such as sense making and inspirational discourse—the capacity to build a desired collective scenario based on a common vision (Antadze and McGowan 2017; Battilana et al. 2009; Emirbayer and Mische 1998; Pyysiäinen 2011). Political and interactional skills, such as incentivizing, bargaining, and networking are emphasized as well (Di Iacovo et al. 2016; Hassink et al. 2013; Westley et al. 2013). Social skills are also identified with social capital. In its narrow interpretation, social capital refers to the individual’ social relations and connections, and his/her sense of trust and safety in the community (Cinderby et al. 2015; Duff 2011; Schaefer et al. 2015). However, for some, social capital broadly includes also structural conditions, such as actors’ access to information and services, as well as cognitive resources shared among different actors (Battilana et al. 2009; Mair and Marti’ 2006). Apart from social skills, few scholars mention also management and business skills (Di Iacovo et al. 2016; Hassink et al. 2013; Pyysiäinen 2011), and cultural competences (Antadze and McGowan 2017; Emirbayer and Mische 1998). Scholarship on moral, social, community, and sustainability entrepreneurship often include morality and values as important dimensions of the entrepreneurial process (Antadze and McGowan 2017; Mair and Marti’ 2006; McKeever et al. 2015; Schaefer et al. 2015). Finally, albeit only marginally considered, is the realm of affective resources, referring to emotions and sentiments attached to both places and practices (Duff 2011; Johnstone and Lionais 2006; McKeever et al. 2015). Notably, neither reference to ethical or emotional dimensions of entrepreneurship is made in the articles on care farming considered in this review (Di Iacovo et al. 2016; Hassink et al. 2013).

The second cluster of enabling resources surfacing from the review focuses on the structural context where entrepreneurship unfolds. Here, three main sub-sets of resources stand out: institutional, cognitive and material. Identifiable as institutional resources are what scholars refer to as field-level conditions (Battilana et al. 2009), and institutional context (Korsgaard et al. 2015). Within the institutional context, entrepreneurs are said to exploit ‘windows of opportunities’ to advance their claims (Westley et al. 2013), such as disruptive events (e.g., social upheaval, environmental disasters or regulatory changes), and higher or lower degree of institutionalization, offering the uncertainty needed to propose innovative solutions (Battilana et al. 2009; Emirbayer and Mische 1998).

Certain literature includes also a cognitive element as part of the structural context, namely shared meanings, values, and norms that may affect initiatives’ success or failure (Mair and Marti’ 2006; Westley et al. 2013). Papers dealing with context embeddedness also stress the importance of material resources, mostly financial and built capitals, that entrepreneurs leverage in their structural context of action (Cinderby et al. 2015; Johnstone and Lionais 2006; Kessler and Frank 2009). Spatial elements, for a long time dismissed in studies of institutional entrepreneurship (Korsgaard et al. 2015), are also considered, including the topographical, geographical and infrastructural characteristics of the place in which entrepreneurs operate (McKeever et al. 2015; Schaefer et al. 2015).

Based on this review, in the empirical phase, the following sets of resources were broadly taken into account as analytical lenses: (a) personal attributes, comprehensive of various skills (social, cultural, political, management), ethical resources, and affective resources; (b) structural conditions, including institutional, cognitive, and material resources.

Methodology

This study employs an in-depth qualitative approach, to take into full account the multiple levels of analysis concurring to the comprehension of place-based social entrepreneurship. The author closely engaged with participants’ real-life context, to appreciate the complexity of meanings and qualities entrepreneurs attach to both their practices and places (Leach et al. 2007). Data collection and analysis were designed with two main objectives: first, to trigger a process of mutual and iterative learning, identifying entrepreneurs’ actual needs and expectations. Indeed, mapping resources and assessing their importance was meant to not only address relevant research questions, but also to trigger critical reflection and capacity building in the people involved (Blackstock et al. 2007). To this extent, I employed methods informed by participatory action-research (PAR), privileging an interactive and empathic approach, and fostering inclusiveness, transparency, and reflexivity (Kindon et al. 2008). Second, the collaborative process was purposely aimed at co-production of knowledge, for both normative and substantial reasons; namely, to enable the acknowledgment and deliberation of multiple values and visions, and to strengthen the validity and relevance of the data collected and of the analysis developed (Leach et al. 2007).

Case selection

A multiple case study strategy was deployed, capable of reflecting an articulated picture of resources needed in different contexts of Green Care entrepreneurship, namely a nature-tourism company, a care farm, and a biodynamic farm. The cases selected offer valuable examples of both types of services currently subject to formal certification in Finland, i.e., ‘Nature Empowerment’ (Luontovoima) and ‘Nature Care’ (Luontohoiva).Footnote 4 Selection was also based on the following criteria: practices are based in locations easily accessible by public transportation; participants could easily communicate in English and were open and enthusiastic to be part of the research. All the cases are relatively small ventures and the core management is primarily in the hands of family members (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Geographical locations of the cases

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The nature-tourism company is based in the city of Tampere and provides sports, educational, recreational and, to a lesser extent, therapeutic activities to private customers in natural environments. The company has recently obtained the ‘Nature Empowerment’ quality mark. The care farm, located 25 km away from Tampere, involves a group of mentally disabled people in raising organic sheep and in farming practices for rehabilitation and social inclusion reasons. The farm is in the process of obtaining the ‘Nature Care’ quality mark. The last case is a biodynamic farm, located at the outskirts of Helsinki metropolitan area. The farm engages different target groups in farming practices for social inclusion and pedagogical purposes. Its activities are diverse and thus may fall under both ‘Nature Care’ and/or ‘Nature Empowerment’, although practitioners operating there have not applied for any formal certification so far.

Methods of data collection and analysis

Data collection and analysis was designed to respond to research questions no. 2, 3 and 4. The aim was to map resources in Green Care entrepreneurship, and explore both their enabling and constraining character. At the same time, I sought to provide a framework for enabling resources for place-based entrepreneurship, which could be both theoretically and analytically consistent and relevant. To this extent, several rounds of data collection and analysis were carried out (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Iterative successive stages of data collection and data analysis

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Stage 1 The main bulk of data relevant to this study resulted from 36 initial semi-structured interviews, coupled by participatory mapping and participant observation. Interviews were administered during a period of 10 months (March–December 2017) first to the main practitioners of the three cases (14 people), and later to their networks of stakeholders (22 people), accounting for tot. 50 h of transcribed conversations. The list of people interviewed is provided as supplementary material. By practitioners, I refer to both the main entrepreneurs running the farm or company, and their staff. Conversely, the network of stakeholders is external to the enterprise. It includes local civil servants, employees in the research and education sector, private enterprises and social organizations that indirectly concur to the provision and use of the Green Care services in question. Stakeholder identification was carried out in a bottom-up fashion, via participatory mapping exercisesFootnote 5 that involved the main practitioners of each of the three cases. Specifically, they were asked to sketch an “Eco-social network”, identifying collaborators, clients, institutions directly and indirectly involved in the practices, as well as the resources needed for the realization of the practices. Involving both the main entrepreneurs and the external stakeholders in this first round of data collection granted a diversity of views with regards to the cases object of the research and relevant practices and places. Finally, participant observation concurred to gain appreciation of project contexts, observing the interactions of people and their environments, and looking at practices performed in places (Leach et al. 2007).

Stage 2 The data collected in Stage 1 was here analyzed. Transcriptions were input into the software package Atlas.ti, and codedFootnote 6 combining a deductive approach—using the set of broad categories found in the literature review as supporting analytical lens—with an inductive one, refining themes and relations found in the data (Fletcher 2016).

Stage 3 During a 6-h workshop held in August 2018, the main practitioners of the three Green Care cases (9 people) were invited to discuss the set of resources obtained from the first analysis of the data, commenting on the relevance, appropriateness and accuracy of resources, based on their first-hand experience (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Methods of data collection. From top left corner: participatory mapping, participant observation and co-creation workshop

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Stage 4 The co-creation workshop contributed to a more in-depth understanding of the empirical material collected since the start of the research. Following, I carried out a second round of coding and analysis of the data collected in Stage 1. In parallel, consistent with principles of reflexivity, and being aware of the researchers’ own bias when analyzing the data, the literature was consulted once more, to further refine the interpretation of the data, in line with relevant discussions in recent scholarship. Stage 4 lead to the final list of nine enabling resources for place-based social entrepreneurship.

Results: an empirically grounded set of enabling resources for place-based social entrepreneurship

In this section, the results of the analysis are presented. Figure 4 shows how the different sets of resources evolved following the stages of data collection and analysis explained in the “Methodology” section above.

Fig. 4
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Evolution of sets of resources through successive rounds of data collection and analysis

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Most of the resources originally found in the literature were confirmed through the iterative analysis of the data, although the terms evolved through the successive stages. Moreover, the co-creation workshop with Green Care practitioners proved particularly valuable to identify nuances within each set of resources, to highlight their enabling or constraining nature, as well as the interrelations between resources. Practitioners were also asked to propose additional resources, which were consequently included in the final list. The result is a comprehensive account of enabling resources directly informed by Green Care entrepreneurship but not limited to that. Figure 5 reports in detail the nine sets obtained and related sub-sets. To present the findings in the most useful way for further generalizations, it was deemed appropriate to place resources under different levels, namely structural, organizational, eco-social community, and personal level (the latter including both inter-personal and intra-personal resources). The different levels are loosely inspired by the so-called socio-ecological model (SEM), an established framework used especially in health and social care to understand the dynamic interrelations among various elements in the system (National Health Care for the Homeless Council 2016). In the section below, each set of resources (and related sub-sets) is described in detail, complemented by raw accounts from the interviews, indicating the data source in brackets (‘P’ if practitioner; ‘S’ if external stakeholder). The full list of research participants, including both practitioners and external stakeholders divided per case study, is provided as “Appendix” to this manuscript.

Fig. 5
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Final sets of enabling resources for Green Care place-based entrepreneurship

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Structural level

Infrastructural resources

Infrastructural resources refer to two sub-sets of structural conditions: physical infrastructures such as roads, electricity grid, and sewage systems (P2; P4), and non-physical infrastructures, namely the presence of a welfare system and the free market. According to the data, the Finnish welfare is indirectly beneficial for all the three cases, as it guarantees basic social security rights to all its citizens. Notably, the current national system still has a strong focus on caring services for the disabled and, to a lesser extent, for other vulnerable groups (e.g. long-term unemployed). Although to a limited degree, this grants funds availability at the municipality level to purchase rehabilitative services from the care farm (S15), and grants stronger purchasing power to private customers who buy rehabilitative activities in wild environments from the nature-tourism company (P1). Conversely, market demand for ‘employee wellbeing services’ decreased following the global economic crisis, affecting service demand for the nature-tourism company (P4).

Institutional resources

Institutional resources are here clustered to include ‘rules’ (laws and regulations), ‘norms’ (standard procedures and practices), and ‘beliefs’ (cognitive attitudes, collective meanings and values), in line with relevant scholarship on institutional change (Battilana et al. 2009; Westley et al. 2013). With regards to this study, laws and regulations (‘rules’) are perceived as essential for the realization of the practices, and yet in most cases carriers of uncertainty and not sufficiently supportive of entrepreneurs’ needs. Indeed, high-level regulatory processes seem to be out of practitioners’ scope of influence (S2; P1; P10). One notable example is the national SOTE (social and healthcare) reform, for years under discussion, with fuzzy implications for the development of Green Care (P15). Lengthy and cumbersome bureaucratic procedures also affect entrepreneurs’ work, as stated by this practitioner: “Decision-makers, politicians, and authorities, they have meetings, and they need to discuss, and to get the solutions you need time, and it takes hours and hours” (P1). Stakeholders seem to confirm that institutions do not always play an enabling role for Green Care entrepreneurs. A civil servant confessed that “cooperation with any municipality isn’t easy” (S15), pushing providers to seek contracts with several municipalities at once. Habituated ways of conduct (‘norms’) also prevent people in institutions to play a stronger role in Green Care development. Two informants from the civil sector explained that local administrations often take a reactive rather than proactive stance, waiting for entrepreneurs to propose innovative initiatives, and only occasionally offering capacity building and knowledge support to prospective Green Care practitioners (S16; S18).

As far as cognitive resources (‘beliefs’) are concerned, changing shared meanings and views positively influence the way Green Care practices are perceived. Most respondents, including both practitioners and external stakeholders, are unanimous in pointing at the positive outlook increasingly surrounding nature-based activities. As stated by this practitioner:

There is lots of interest regarding ‘Green Care’, and people are getting more information about it. For example the visitors here, they are farm workers, they come to see how this is done, and they are interested to do it themselves. So I think this is growing, and also from the customer side, because the word ‘Green Care’ is spreading, and positive experiences and positive spirit are also spreading (P10).

Media’s growing attention to the therapeutic effects of nature-based activities plays an important role in shaping this positive perception, as confirmed by external stakeholders (S8; S23). Additionally, a model of community-based care is slowly gaining recognition over the traditional hospital-based one worldwide, with positive repercussions also in Finland (P11; S2).

The advocacy and capacity building work carried out by the Green Care Finland Association has also enabled the development of the concept at national level. For both practitioners and stakeholders interviewed, the work of the Association—such as trainings, certification procedures, labs and information sessions, and net-weaving actions—has concurred to build the cognitive “infrastructure” needed for entrepreneurs to develop Green Care services in a “focused” manner (P1; S1; S2), and to market them to both public and private buyers (P15; S8; S21).

Organizational level

Material resources

Material resources refer to assets that are crucial to the daily operations of most companies or farms. Non-living assets include for instance equipment and facilities (P7), and private transportation services (P1; P8). Finally, investments in financial capital and in time are also considered here as material resources. Both are mentioned to a considerable lesser extent than the previous two sub-sets, and yet are crucial to the realization of Green Care practices, and often referred to as constraining rather than enabling resources by most practitioners unanimously (P13; P14; P2). Notably, material resources are rarely mentioned by external stakeholders.

Organizational culture-related resources

This category of resources was included in the final set, based on closer interpretation of data gathered during both interviews and co-creation workshop. They refer to the norms and attitudes which reflect a specific organizational culture, a certain way to interact and operate in an organized setting—be it a company, a farm, or a community. Notably, the extent to which members identify with the organization’s principles can be an important enabling factor, according to practitioners (P3; P10). Conversely, resistance to change habituated behaviors and mindsets can act in constraining ways, as often times observed by external stakeholders (S22; S23; P5). Indeed, in the Green Care sector practices are primarily designed in a customer-oriented way, and thus require flexibility: “We are a versatile and adaptive company, we can adapt to different needs of different customers. And this has been a positive factor that explains why our company is still alive” (P2). A certain organizational culture also affects the capacity and openness to take risks and venture into novel arrangements, which is essential to build the partnerships needed to offer Green Care services (S2).

Eco-social community level

Place-specific resources

This category includes the living ecosystems that characterize a place, as well as ‘sense of place’. Nature is as important as people in Green Care, and together, nature and people shape the eco-social community in which practices are embedded. Water, snow, ice, trees, etc., are the irreplaceable resources needed by the nature-tourism company (P3; P4; P5). Likewise, animals to care for, and fields and woods to tend to, are as necessary in both care and biodynamic farms (P7; P13).

However, for the nature-tourism company, one specific place—characterized by unique physical and mental attributes—is not always as important in the realization of Green Care practices (P2; P4) as for the farms. “Nature is everywhere” (P2), and activities can be designed to fit any environment. On the other hand, many practices are offered in the proximity of the city, so as to increase people’s accessibility and recreational use of urban forests and lakes (P1; S4). When both practitioners and stakeholders refer to the care farm and the biodynamic farm, place becomes a crucial enabling resource:

It is just the whole atmosphere of the place, it’s meant for people to be here.[…] Well, it’s a beautiful place. The fields are small, it’s not like endless plain, in a small area there is a very rich variety of different elements, yes, it’s a very traditional kind of landscape.” (P14).

Aesthetic qualities of the landscape and cultural character of the place make the farms in this study a unique setting for Green Care practices. Such attributes are also the result of cognitive processes that shape a specific ‘sense of place’ (P13). The latter refers to the array of features, sensations, qualities that people attribute to a locality (inclusive of its landscape, animals and people). Notably, a certain sense of place surfaces from the responses of external stakeholders, even when not immediately familiar with the specific Green Care practices offered in the case study considered (S23; S19).

Social resources

Social resources are both tangible and intangible aspects that nurture social relations at various levels. Central to any Green Care activities are human beings. People—staff, clients and external stakeholders—are the necessary fabric of any social enterprise, crucial to its everyday operations (P13; S2). Like in many social enterprises, part of the work is also done on a volunteering basis, creating a community of people who contribute to a common cause. Networks and relations of various sorts are also considered as sub-resource in this category. Notably, when asked “What makes Green Care happen?” respondents often answered “personal networks” and “connections” (P15). Indeed, cross-sectoral collaborations are crucial for the realization of the practices, and you need to “… find the right people to make it happen, and also the right contact” (P8). Not surprisingly, all the main practitioners belong to different associations that gather entrepreneurs and/or farmers focusing on similar products (P1; P8; P13).

Personal level

Ethical resources

Moral values and ethical motives starkly surface from the data analysis. At the level of the individuals, desire for social inclusion and ecological justice often motivate Green Care practitioners’ work: “Values are really important in this work. I can do the work that is doing something good to the environment and also to the people” (P9). Practitioners express care for both humans and the ecosystem, which shapes substantially the way practices are carried out (P8; S22).

At relational level, values enable the constant exercise of net-weaving needed to maintain and nurture social ties. Trust is often explicitly named in the interviews, both by practitioners (P3), as well as from stakeholders: “It’s easy to work with them, I can always trust that they take care of the whole event.” (S4). Solidarity and reciprocity also tie connections together. Notably, one stakeholder motivated her decision to purchase food products and occasional services from the biodynamic farm with the explicit desire to “… support that kind of farming” (S17), being aware of the financial difficulties implicit in doing biodynamic work, and based on a commonality of worldviews: “I think they are doing something more for the earth than for themselves. I appreciate that very very much” (S17).

Affective resources

Affective resources deserve a set of their own, as they are extremely recurrent in both practitioners and stakeholders’ accounts, and most often enable the realization of the practices. Fear for the future of a place motivates the need to create novel arrangements to save it from unwanted developments (P13); love for one’s family fuels the desire to continue business operations following certain values (P3); hope for future generations motivates the desire to teach clients to respect the ecosystem, thus offering nature-based activities (P1). Very often, when recounting everyday experiences of Green Care practices, practitioners also share feelings of joy, happiness and satisfaction:

Why I do this? Every time you see a customer, they are happy, they are smiling, so the service that we provide is something positive for them. And of course this positive feeling spreads around, so I get positive feeling out of the people that enjoy our services (P4).

Moreover, when asked about the most crucial factor concurring to the success of Green Care practices, external stakeholders most often refer to practitioners’ passionate attitude:

When they came they were really excited and really passionate about this, and they were changing their lives, and I was like “Wow”—living on the farm, farming and taking care of the people, it was really something new and very exciting (S16).

Competence-related resources

Here are clustered the vast array of skills and abilities that practitioners mobilize, create and develop to offer Green Care services. Such skills are often the combination of life experience, training and education, and professional experience (P4). When asked how they became Green Care entrepreneurs, practitioners would often recall childhood or teenage memories of time spent in farms and forests (P1; P7; P8). Ad hoc trainings needed in wilderness-tourism, social work or organic farming (depending on the type of Green Care practice) are extremely relevant as well, especially from the perspective of external stakeholders who purchase the services, who attach a great importance to practitioners’ experience and expertise (S15; S7). Data confirm that entrepreneurial and managerial skills play a strong role in the launch and durability of novel initiatives, concurring strongly to its success or failure (P4; S4). Among the most named set of competences by both practitioners and external stakeholders are social skills, such as friendliness, attentiveness to others, and pleasure in being with people (P1; P15; S19). These often motivate practitioners’ desire to start the practices, as well as clients’ willingness to purchase them (S2). Finally, individual attributes conventionally associated with entrepreneurial fortitude are here categorized as cultural qualities. Notable examples are personality traits such as perseverance, determination, and willfulness, which can be epitomized by the Finnish word ‘Sisu’. At the question “What was a crucial factor in the realization of your Green Care practices?” one practitioner affirmed: “To work hard and believing in what we are doing, to think how it is at the moment, so that we are all the time growing larger and developing compared to two years ago” (P7). Strength and determination are crucial enabling factors for the realization of the practices also from the perspective of external stakeholders (S22).

Towards a comprehensive understanding of enabling resources for place-based social entrepreneurship

There is no doubt that Green Care entrepreneurs are resourceful individuals and active resource-assembling. Resources are crucial to ‘make things happen’ and to guarantee the success of the initiatives in the long run, as clearly demonstrated by the findings above. The case of Green Care practices in Finland confirms recent literature assumptions regarding the relational nature of entrepreneurship: practitioners are not heroic or atomistic individuals solving problems and furthering progress; rather, their initiatives are relational achievements (Duff 2011), that depend on a complex interplay of tangible and intangible elements. Moreover, entrepreneurs not only ‘draw’, ‘mobilize’ or ‘leverage’ existing resources (Battilana et al. 2009; Pyysiäinen 2011), but also create new ones, in line with the so-called ‘creation view’ proposed by Korsgaard et al. (2015). Notable examples are intangible social values, such as trust and reciprocity, which guarantee the continuity of cross-sectoral partnership, as well as individual cultural qualities, such as perseverance and determination in the entrepreneurial process.

Context embeddedness plays an important role in this sense, providing the anchor for social connections and network-building opportunities. Findings demonstrate the centrality of place-based resources, long disregarded by studies on change agency in favor of a narrow focus on institutional and social dynamics (Korsgaard et al. 2015). Place can shape, sustain, and in some instances, motivate the practices, thus it does not only constitute a resource in itself, but has the potential to be a fulcrum of mutually reinforcing enabling resources. Caring for places and its community can spur entrepreneurial action at the emotional level, while allowing for untapped potentials to be recognized, and to be cherished through the activities of the farm/company. Emotions and sentiments have been long ignored by scholarship on entrepreneurship (Antadze and McGowan 2017). The accounts retrieved in this study suggest that practitioners’ personal resources—here including competence-related, affective, and ethical assets—are extremely recurrent success factors in all the cases considered. Being the three enterprises small-scale and family-owned, it is no surprise that the main practitioners’ personality and legitimacy, their social skills, values, and visions, play a very important role in defining the nature of enterprise, and of their practices. Although this is in line with studies of Green Care, such literature does not frame either sentiments or morals as resources (Di Iacovo et al. 2016; Hassink et al. 2013). Conversely, based on our findings, personal resources should receive stronger attention and become subjects of entrepreneurs’ capacity building and empowerment trainings. Moreover, this dimension should be given stronger credit also when investigating changes at institutional level, where practitioners do not only act as knowledge-brokers and net-weavers, but also as catalyzers and carriers of sentiments and morals across stakeholders with different interests. This has positive repercussions on the collective understanding and support of nature-based activities, which in turn, facilitates the creation of relationships of trust across sectors.

This study not only demonstrates that resources can be mutually enabling, it also suggests that practices enable resources. Indeed, practitioners never refer to their competences as given, but rather resulting from learning processes enacted and provided to users via everyday practices of Green Care.

According to the empirical analysis proposed here, resources available at structural and organizational level are perceived as less enabling in comparison to others. In particular, financial resources are hard to mobilize, and only in the case of the care farm, do public funds play a substantial role in the provision of the services. This is not only to be ascribed to a welfare system partially withdrawing its support in both healthcare and social services provision (P15). It is also the result of the inability to assess to what extent Green Care practices affect change at different sustainability dimensions (P13). For practitioners impact is often non-quantifiable, multi-causal, and spread out in time. For external stakeholders, not all dimensions are given sufficient attention when referring to the practices, depending on their respective area of interest (S15; S9). Indeed, often Green Care is understood as the mere provision of a service (S20). The suggestion that can be inferred from this study is that a narrow sectoral focus should leave way to a forward-looking and holistic understanding of the multiple roles Green Care entrepreneurship can play to contribute to a more sustainable, culturally aware, and socially sensitive form of place-based development. This could hand by hand with a critical investigation of how enabling resources can enhance the potential of Green Care to contribute to desired processes of socio-economic transformation.

Reflecting on the methodological approach, it is argued that participatory co-creation methods can lead to an improved understanding of the process of ‘making things happen’ and its intervening variables. Indeed, the articulated picture of enabling resources offered in this paper was the outcome of an in-depth participatory process that involved not only Green Care practitioners but also their external networks of stakeholders. This granted a level of understanding of the phenomenon at hand rarely achieved in studies of place-based social entrepreneurship. Through successive rounds of data collection and analysis, I was able to explore the richness and quality of the data while maintaining a reflexive stance, recognizing the diversity of equally valid epistemic and normative perspectives aired by the research participants. The co-creation workshop in particular proved extremely valuable to ensure a balanced tradeoff between scientific reliability and social legitimacy of the findings obtained.

This study also has a number of limitations. First, the extent to which the findings apply to other cases of social entrepreneurship depends on the extent to which the cases vary and naturally may be the subject of subsequent testing using other methods. Green Care initiatives are distinct types of practices, and the importance and effects of certain enabling resources over others are likely to be different in other types of practices. Moreover, the cases analyzed in this paper are mostly family-owned enterprises; therefore, certain elements may be exaggerated in these cases compared to other types of ventures. Finally, this research does not engage with the critical backdrop of resourcefulness, namely the wider socio-economic dynamics that force social enterprises to continuously mobilize new assets, notable examples being the evolving role of the welfare system and the increasing expectations placed on social innovation initiatives.

Conclusion

Despite rich theorization of resources enabling different kinds of entrepreneurial action, existing literature has yet to provide an in-depth comprehensive mapping of enabling resources for place-based social entrepreneurship. This study has attempted to bridge this gap, focusing on the case of Green Care practices in Finland. The result is an empirically grounded picture of nine interrelated sets of enabling resources that influence practitioners’ initiatives on a daily basis. Findings show that a great variety of tangible and intangible assets are crucial to the entrepreneurial process, some of which has been underestimated in the past scholarship. Understanding enabling resources in Green Care requires a richly nuanced, multilevel perspective on entrepreneurship, one that takes into account place embeddedness, and that considers also the ethical and emotional dimensions of the resource mobilization process. Bridging literature on social entrepreneurship with place-making research has proved particularly useful in this paper.

As a follow-up to this study, the data considered here could be subject to further analysis in the future, to deeply investigate the importance of certain resources over others with a case-based comparative perspective.

Moreover, the sets of enabling resources proposed in this paper should not be viewed as having hard, definitive boundaries. Rather they represent a dynamic and interrelated ‘eco-system’. Testing its relevance in other contexts of place-based social entrepreneurship is one of the exciting avenues for future comparative research. Further research is also needed to investigate the role of enabling resources in facilitating processes of change, and place-based transformation in particular.

It is hoped that this paper can serve as a platform to invigorate an open and more reflexive exploration of processes of place-based social entrepreneurship.