Change agency and path development in peripheral regions: from pulp production towards eco-industry in Lapland

Figures & data

Table 1. Three types of change agency in a nutshell (applying Grillitsch & Sotarauta, 2020).

	Innovative entrepreneurship	Institutional entrepreneurship	Place-based leadership
The core definition	Activities, actors or processes aimed at transforming existing economic activities or creating new economic activities through the novel combination of knowledge and resources.	Activities, actors or processes aimed at challenging and transforming existing rules, normative expectations or thinking patterns, and creating new ones.	Activities, actors or processes aimed at co-ordinating and mobilising variegated actors – powers, capabilities and resources – for the collective pursuit of place-based development.
The core empirical questions	Are there actors taking risks and searching for opportunities by introducing innovations or constructing preconditions for their own business?	Are there actors working to change collective thinking patterns about the region and its core activities; change how actions and choices are sanctioned or rewarded in a region; or the normative collective expectations and ambitions about the future? How are they working to influence? Are they taking risks and consciously searching for opportunities to change the institutional set-up?	Are there actors working to mobilize other actors with important resources, capabilities or powers and/or coordinating their activities for regional development or some aspects of it? How are they working to influence?

Figure 1. The location of Eastern Lapland.

Table 2. The pattern of trinity of change agency in Eastern Lapland.

	Industrialization (From the 1960s to the first plant closure in 2002)	External shocks (Plant closures from 2002 to 2008)	The search for a new path (Post plant closures, 2009->)
Place leadership	Pattern: Weak place leadership but responsive local government. Key actors: Municipalities (formal and assigned leadership)	Pattern: Mobilization of local actors to demonstrate. Key actors: Local politicians and a handful of other activists	Pattern: Mobilization of expertise, local formal power and support nationally, as well as funding internationally and nationally. Key actors: The forest champion and a handful of other locally influential individuals, also from municipalities and the development agency.
Innovative entrepreneurship	Pattern: Major corporations established plants on state subsidies, local labour or natural resources. Key actors: Three major corporations	Pattern: Major corporations left the sub-region, local entrepreneurial culture was weak. Key actors: None	Pattern: Efforts to search for and attract entrepreneurs – place leaders turned to innovative entrepreneurs. Key actors: The forest champion and a handful of other locally influential individuals.
Institutional entrepreneurship	Pattern: State of Finland and major corporations shared the risk and shaped local institutions for industrial development. Key actors: The State of Finland and major corporations	Pattern: Non-existent locally, insubstantial support from the national support system. Key actors: None	Pattern: Place leaders mobilized thinking, resources and expertise, simultaneously challenging local institutions, laying ground for institutional entrepreneurship to emerge. Key actors: Place leaders gradually challenged local cognitive-cultural and normative institutions and thus began also to take the role of institutional entrepreneurship.

Grillitsch, M., and M. Sotarauta. 2020. “Trinity of Change Agency, Regional Development Paths and Opportunity Spaces.” Progress in Human Geography 44 (4): 704–723. doi:10.1177/0309132519853870

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