Bergmane, Marta

The purpose of the thesis is to explore cross-sectoral knowledge dynamics and knowledge creation in the emerging field of strategic branding in the social and solidarity economy with a specific focus on experts’ conceptualizations of what branding in this field means and how it should be carried out in practice. The thesis analyzes empiric data from 3 qualitative semi-structured interviews with 3 different social impact brand consultants. The theoretical framework is based on concepts from the academic research on knowledge and knowledge creation, knowledge exchange and knowledge combination. The main point of interest is to reveal the implicit dimensions of expert knowledge by exploring the knowledge dynamics that contribute to the expert conceptualization of branding in social and solidarity economy. Furthermore, it is to explore the possible interplay between micro factors (individual expert knowledge) and macro processes - trends in knowledge creation in the emerging field of branding in social and solidarity economy and their potential impact on practices carried out in the field of social entrepreneurship.It is argued that a significant difference exist in the experts understanding of branding in social and solidarity economy which can be consider to be a result of varying levels of conceptual understanding of the complexities of social and solidarity economy organizations which in return can be explained by the different knowledge dynamics that the social impact brand consultants are involved in. It is concluded that in order to create well rounded knowledge on for-purpose branding that brings together the best tools and practices and insights from private sector and social impact organizations in a hybrid field like SSE there is a need to create more possibilities for a heterarchical dynamics. Heterarchical dynamics provide a possibility for not only one-sided knowledge exchange but also for reciprocal knowledge exchange and knowledge combination as it is exactly these processes that contribute to new-knowledge creation. It is argued that it is as necessary to introduce strategic branding principle to social and solidarity organizations to help them amplify their impact, as it is to educate social impact brand consultants about strategic and conceptual complexities of social and solidarity economy organizations

Branding in Social and Solidarity Economy: An Exploratory Study of Cross-sectoral Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Dynamics

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Roskilde Universitet