Individual agency and socio-spatial change in regional development: Conceptualizing governance entrepreneurship

Although scholars and practitioners increasingly highlight the role of individuals in initiating socio-spatial change processes in regional development, there is still little conceptual and empirical knowledge concerning this phenomenon. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to gain a deeper theoretical understanding of entrepreneurial individuals in local and regional governance and to provide a more comprehensive framework for investigating individual agency and socio-spatial change. In concepts of local and regional governance, the role of individuals has been overshadowed by the focus on institutional and organizational structures. Policy and institutional entrepreneurship literature stresses the importance of individual capabilities for identifying windows of opportunity and promoting policy and institutional change. However, it reveals some shortcomings concerning the influence of entrepreneurial individuals in governance itself. By combining both strands of literature, the concept of governance entrepreneurship is introduced here. It accentuates the role of entrepreneurial individuals in initiating change in local and regional governance by establishing or transforming actor constellations, interaction modes, or decision-making territories. Finally, the interrelatedness of the concepts of institutional, policy, and governance entrepreneurship is discussed in order to gain a deeper understanding of these different types of transformative agency.