We introduce the concept of “relational reflexivity”—drawn from realist and relational sociological theories—to examine how external actors engage in the collective process of endogenous social change driven by community-based entrepreneurship. Relational reflexivity allows individuals to reflect on the quality of their relationships (relational goods), transforming their identities and developing new relationships. By comparing the life stories of two individuals, we identify two relational paths establishing different types of relationships with community-based entrepreneurial ventures. In the first path (embedded transformation), reflection on trust and mutual recognition of expertise enables an external scientist to join the entrepreneurial venture. In the second path (institutional facilitation), reflection on public transparency and the constitutional roles enables a head of a semi-public organization to shift the policy approach from viewing entrepreneurs as “beneficiaries” to recognizing them as “rights-holders.” In both cases, relational reflexivity connects collective action to broader processes of social change. ... Read more

Conventional disaster recovery often prioritizes rapid restoration to a baseline state but potentially perpetuates pre-existing vulnerabilities that neglect long-term resilience. Unlike current approaches that emphasize physical and economic rebuilding with a blind eye to the previous context of disasters, Reformative Recovery (RR) highlights the need to intervene in social and environmental long-term processes leading to vulnerability. This paper advances the concept of ‘Reformative Recovery’ and proposes an analytical framework as a sense-making tool to guide interpretation of recovery dynamics by foregrounding the conditions that foster vulnerability and impede long-term resilience. RR reframes recovery as a continuous and non-linear process shaped by social and institutional dynamics. The analytical framework is developed through a systematic scoping review and structured around six dimensions relevant for RR: 1) social justice, 2) governance arrangements, 3) community and culture, 4) financial mechanisms, 5) built environment, and 6) critical services. As an extension to the state of the art, a social justice dimension is proposed as an overarching component. Furthermore, the concept of critical services is extended beyond networked infrastructures to include locally defined essential services. These dimensions reflect the complex and interconnected nature of disaster impacts. For each dimension, we propose diagnostic prompts to support critical assessment of conditions and potential for inclusive and just post-disaster recovery by means of reformation. Rather than prescriptive indicators, these prompts serve as deliberative tools to support reflective and context-sensitive use by decision-makers and researchers. RR can be used to bridge short-term actions with long-term resilience-building in diverse contexts. ... Read more

Urban resilience strategies foster hybrid spaces across bottom-up and top-down urban governance processes for urban planning to include new ways of thinking. However, hybridity, on a more practical level, entails tensions between ways of doing things that do not conventionally operate together but are merged in the implementation of programmes, projects, and initiatives. We illustrate ‘governance’ and ‘implementation’ as different levels of urban organisational hybridity in our case study of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, empirically contrasting urban planning resilience representations against representations emerging during the implementation of its social resilience programme. We find that planning representations at the governance level imagined social resilience to be a result of organisational innovations that would form the basis of the so-called ‘Next Economy’, driven by decentralised renewable energy linked to entrepreneurial communitarian forms of organisation in partnership with public and private sectors. However, implementation reveals frustration due to institutional unfitness and the absence of business cases for attracting private investors to the table. Organisational fixes in response valorise networks of enthusiastic (but discrete and precarious) communitarian initiatives with little connection to large-scale (but centralised and only public–private) gas-free investments. By acknowledging that hybridity works differently at governance and implementation levels, we can avoid urban resilience imaginaries that pose, in practice, the burden of aligning with bureaucratic and profit-oriented logic as a new barrier to enacting inclusive citizenship. ... Read more

Cities worldwide increasingly adopt social resilience strategies, yet their implementation often obscures real drivers of urban renovation with ambiguous indicators. This study examines Rotterdam’s 'balanced neighbourhoods' policy, based on property values, and its claimed contribution to urban social resilience. Using empirical data and structural equation modelling, we investigate how housing value mix affects social cohesion and informal support in 'balanced neighbourhood' configurations. Only 2.1% of possible configurations fit Rotterdam’s urban policy claims, and even those yield counterproductive associations. We argue that the ambiguous definition of 'balanced neighbourhoods' obscures policy goals, allowing areas in Rotterdam North to meet 'balance' criteria without reflecting the municipality’s long-term composition targets, while the South—dominated by social housing—faces demolition. Our study highlights the need for more nuanced measures of resilience and calls for shifting from interventions that alter the physical composition of neighbourhoods to enhancing social cohesion as a key factor promoting resilient actions. ... Read more

The global shift against diversity underscores universities' vital role in embracing diversity beyond mere representation. A key challenge is recognizing diversity beyond cross-cultural boundaries of, for example, gender, ethnicity or nationality. We suggest universities to foster an intercultural approach that recognizes the co-existence of multiple forms of difference and the agency of continuously shaping one’s identity. By fostering the development of a diversity competence throughout and beyond the curriculum, we envision universities not only as places for learning how to make projects or innovations on time, on budget, and with functional quality. Universities are also places for reflecting on which type of society these projects contribute to and what role one plays. Do we want a society and engineers that build bridges between people or set walls between them? Overlooking diversity in the engineering practice can lead to growing pressures overtime within and between diverse groups. We write this manifesto from our teaching experience about intercultural relations. First, we outline the impact of ignoring diversity on sustainable development. Then, we discuss diversity in theory and how our technical university embraces it. Finally, we reflect on the students’ perspectives on our attempts to shift from managing diversity to developing competencies. We call for each course and project where teamwork occurs to facilitate a safe and reflective environment to approach, analyse, and act upon diversity at three levels: at the professional level, by recognizing how (technical) work involves both making and caring; at the project level, by navigating biases and teamwork challenges; and at the societal level, by recognizing the project's (unintended) impact and role. ... Read more

The practice and theory of urban governance often compel governing coalitions to shape the right entrepreneurial ecosystem in response to the pressures of global competition. This contribution conceptualises such a demand within the framework of the “coloniality of power” introduced by the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano. We argue that coloniality operates through an “aspiration of being” or an obsession with international rankings, which necessarily entails an internal compulsion to racialise and classify localities and inhabitants. This aspiration turns low-skilled migrants into liabilities for the imagined competitive city as urban political economies change over time. We illustrate this through the discourse and practice of urban entrepreneurship in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) to elaborate on the implications of the “aspiration of being” and establish three conditions under which one could claim a case for the coloniality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in urban governance. ... Read more

The pragmatic view of urban resilience has re-framed long-lasting social issues as chronic social stresses that can be addressed by building strong social networks in urban environments. This practice, inspired by disaster management, is problematic because it presupposes a community whose members share the same fate. Conversely, social vulnerability emerges from the asymmetrical distribution of agency in the social order, so that a low social position jeopardises life chances. Hence, we argue that the social dimension in urban resilience should focus on the role of social positions and individuals’ agentic predispositions to control their life chances if faced with adversity (i.e., their Mastery). Using structural equation modelling and data from a 2018 public Dutch survey, we found that when mediated by Mastery, socioeconomic status drives the individual’s positive adaptation behaviour. In contrast, Interaction with Primary Networks, Neighbourhood Cohesion, and Membership in Voluntary Associations have an unsubstantial relationship to positive adaptation. These empirical results suggest that Mastery is crucial for people’s resilience in their daily life. In view of the recent shift towards negotiation in resilience thinking, we propose Mastery as the guiding factor for transforming arrangements that shape social positions. ... Read more

Project managers activate their agentic powers in the (re)production of project governance structure and the institutional context of projects. By examining three ongoing Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects within the Dutch policy path, we provide evidence that managers aim to improve their working conditions when enacting three project governing practices: upscaling issues, adapting, and reproducing. Additionally, we show that public project managers mobilized as a group of interest within the public parent organization are able to influence the policy context and improve their control position for future PPP agreements. We identify "emerging associativity" and "ideological legitimization" as core processes of managerial agency, deployed in project practice and influencing institutional contexts. ... Read more

Process management literature is skeptical about creating legitimacy and a sense of partnership when implementing concessional Public-Private Partnerships. Within such organizational arrangements, managerial interaction often resembles zero-sum games. To explore the possibility to (re)create a sense of partnership in concessional PPPs, we developed the “3P challenge” serious game. Two gaming sessions with a mixed group of practitioners and a team of public project managers showed that the game cycle recreates adversarial situations where players can enact contractual obligations with higher or lower levels of subjectivity. When reflecting on the gaming experience, practitioners point out that PPP contracts can be creatively enacted by managers who act as brokers of diverse interests. While becoming aware of each other stakes they can blend contractual dispositions or place brackets around some contractual clauses for reaching agreement. By doing so, they can (re)create a sense of partnership, clarity, and fairness of the PPP contract. ... Read more