Industrial Organization, Non Profit Economics

• Sponsor: FWO
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• IRES Researcher: Jozef Cossey
• Start date: 2020
• End date: 2024

Project description

The purpose of this thesis is to challenge the taken for granted belief that efforts to address environmental degradation at the firm-level are inherently good or beneficial. The focus on potential, unintended consequences of firm actions throughout this PhD seeks to complement existing discussions in the literature focused on corporate ecological inaction and greenwashing.  

To this end, this dissertation draws on the concept of policy resistance as an overarching concept for several mechanisms that try to explain the often counterintuitive results of well-intentioned interventions. Consequently, this dissertation focuses empirically on companies that explicitly seek to address environmental degradation through their economic activities, a type of venturing that is often denoted as environmental entrepreneurship. 

• Sponsor: Walloon Region
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• IRES Researcher: Coralie Helleputte
• Start date: September 2023
• End date: September 2025

Project description 

The Chair in Social Economy (chairES) at UCLouvain is one of four chairES (ULiège, UMONS, ULB and UCLouvain) supported by the Walloon Region between 2022 and 2025 to conduct transdisciplinary research in social economy, in close connection with the ecosystem of social enterprises in the Walloon Region and Brussels. 
More precisely the two objectives of this Chaire is:

a) To strengthen the University's ability to respond, through its research, teaching and ecosystem support activities, to the issues raised by the growth of the social economy theme; 

b) To consolidate the legitimacy of social enterprise models in the region's economic landscape, given the potential of this type of enterprise to respond to societal challenges. 

• Sponsor: Walloon Region
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• IRES researcher: Zoé Debroeyer
• Start Date: October 2023
• End date: September 2027

Project description

The PhD thesis examines the organizational resilience of Social Economy (SE) organizations. Specifically, it aims to understand the mechanisms and tools these organizations implement to adapt and navigate crises and periods of uncertainty. The first part will focus on the relationship between the unique characteristics of SE organizations and their resilience mechanisms. The second part will involve comparative analyses with organizations in the conventional economy. By employing mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative), the PhD seeks to ground itself in practical fieldwork to address the current challenges faced by SE organizations. 

• Sponsor: FNRS
• Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
• Start date: September 2024
• End date: September 2026

Project description

In the face of the multiplicity of crises, a variety of work has leveraged the concepts on and around the commons to bring a commons fix to capitalism, of which commoning has been presented as a solution. Commoning is concerned with the way civil society organizes and creates organizations to support the development of collaborative communities governing commons. In doing so, commoning makes space for alternative governance practices to develop new social production and organization modes, and reduce social inequalities. Yet, literature has shown that commoning practices are hindered by tensions. In this research project, we wish to focus on the governance mechanisms developed through commoning practices so to reduce group tensions. We take the case of squats as extreme cases of urban commons. Indeed, through their anti-market nature and often illegal settings, squats intend to reclaim the commons, reduce inequalities, and target decommodification.  

Sponsor: FSR
IRES Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
IRES Researchers: Esmeralda Gerritse
Start date: 2019
End date: 2023

Project description

Cooperatives, one of the oldest types of social enterprises, have received fresh attention because they can play an important role in social and ecological transition. This research project will focus on the sustainability of worker cooperatives and the new wave of so-called “social cooperatives”. First, it will analyse the resilience of SCOP, the French worker cooperatives, to the recent crisis. Secondly, it will look at “social cooperatives” and investigate their survivability. Thirdly, it will explore the institutional arrangements/governance structure of worker cooperatives and social cooperatives to analyse their similarities and divergences and to see to what extent those organisations can be understood as commons.

Sponsor: Concert ES ASBL, Walloon Government
IRES Promoter: Anaïs Périlleux
Start date: 2020
End date: 2023

Project description

The "DENIS" project is a follow-up of the VISE project (2016-2019). The project sheds light on the impact of social enterprises on the dynamism and welfare of the local territories where they locate. It is a multidisciplinary framework, in which academic researcher, federations and social enterprises cooperate to develop new methods of impact assessment and valorization.

Sponsor: EC/COST
IRES Promoter: Marthe Nyssens
Start date: 2017
End date: 2021

Project description

This Cost Action aims at:

Contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the diversity of SE models emerging across Europe and globally;
Empowering the next generation of SE scholars, focusing on expanding the SE scientific community to less research-intensive countries where it is still embryonic or non-existing;
Fostering evidence-based policy from local to European levels and supporting the development of SE and their eco-systems in synergy with main industry representatives and stakeholders;
Implementing networking mechanisms to connect fragmented communities and to contribute to closing the gap between the scientific community, policy- makers and society throughout Europe and beyond.
More information on the COST website

• Sponsor: Innoviris
• IRES promoter: Marthe Nysens
• IRES Researchers: Ela Callorda
• Start date: 

Faculty members

	Marthe Nyssens  E-Mail: marthe.nyssens@uclouvain.be  Website: https://uclouvain.be/fr/repertoires/marthe.nyssens
	Anaïs Périlleux  E-mail: anais.perilleux@uclouvain.be  Website: https://perso.uclouvain.be/anais.perilleux/

Project Description:

Cooperatives, one of the oldest types of social enterprises, have received fresh attention because they can play an important role in social and ecological transition. This research project will focus on the sustainability of worker cooperatives and the new wave of so-called “social cooperatives”. First, it will analyse the resilience of SCOP, the French worker cooperatives, to the recent crisis. Secondly, it will look at “social cooperatives” and investigate their survivability. Thirdly, it will explore the institutional arrangements/governance structure of worker cooperatives and social cooperatives to analyse their similarities and divergences and to see to what extent those organisations can be understood as commons.

Project description :

The ``DENIS’’ project is a follow-up of the VISE project (2016-2019). The project sheds light on the impact of social enterprises on the dynamism and welfare of the local territories where they locate. It is a multidisciplinary framework, in which academic researcher, federations and social enterprises cooperate to develop new methods of impact assessment and valorization.

Project Description

This Cost Action aims at:

• Contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the diversity of SE models emerging across Europe and globally;
•  Empowering the next generation of SE scholars, focusing on expanding the SE scientific community to less research-intensive countries where it is still embryonic or non-existing;
• Fostering evidence-based policy from local to European levels and supporting the development of SE and their eco-systems in synergy with main industry representatives and stakeholders;
• Implementing networking mechanisms to connect fragmented communities and to contribute to closing the gap between the scientific community, policy- makers and society throughout Europe and beyond.

More information at http://www.empowerse.eu

Project Description

This project will conduct a comparative and systematic assessment of advantages and disadvantages of organisational and business models of the collaborative economy in the Region of Brussels-Capital in three specific sectors: mobility, housing and food. The project is a collaboration between 3 Belgian universities (UCLouvain, StLouis and Odisee-KUL).

Project Description

This project is part of the partnership between CIRTES and the social enterprise Les “Petits Riens”. It aims to develop a transdisciplinary research approach linking scientific knowledge issues and societal challenges, regarding the implementation of social performance indicators in social enterprises. This question is at the heart of scientific and social debates, and raises many controversies. The aim is to deepen, beyond discourse, but based of a concrete and long-term experience, the knowledge on the conditions for implementing social performance measures in a multidimensional approach that takes into account the different political, organizational, epistemological and methodological issues.

Project Description

The aim of this project is twofold: to shed some light, through scientific research, on the complexity of the social economy and to provide tools to promote the social and environmental sustainability of enterprises. Les Petits Riens collects, selects and sells second hand clothes. Although less well known it also implements a wide range of social actions. Indeed, among others, Les Petits Riens host and support more than 300 homeless people every year. Engaged in this Chaire, this social enterprise has chosen a scientific approach to formalize and improve its actions and to share the knowledge acquired during more than 75 years of activity. It believes, indeed, that changing the way enterprises are organized from a social, economic and environmental perspective is a key factor to tackle poverty and exclusion. Every year the Chaire will choose a different topic relevant for both social enterprises and the academic researchers in the field. This first year, it will investigate the issues and the complexity of social impact measurement. This topic is crucial for social enterprises as they face an increasing pressure from public bodies and private investors in order to prove their social impact. It is also a relevant subject for academic research as social impact measurement raises important theoretical and methodological questions.

Chaire’s Webpage: https://uclouvain.be/fr/chercher/cirtes/chaire-les-petits-riens-l-economie-sociale-au-service-de-la-lutte-contre-la-pauvrete-0.html

Project Description

In recent years, many innovative sharing economy platforms (SEPs) had a strong impact on their stakeholders: service providers and consumers alike. Platforms change the economy: individuals renting out rooms or driving cars create competition for established hospitality and transport providers (as evidenced by the protests of taxi drivers in cities where Uber operates). SEPs also impact society as a whole: they prompt change in how people plan, travel, meet and eat. Their operation can modify social and economic environment in entire communities (think of Airbnb’s effects on cities’ housing markets and quality of life).

The sharing economy is not only a land of promises but also of great perils. Even fast- growing and global for-pro t platforms like Uber are still struggling to make a pro t, while the failure rate of startups is higher than in other sectors. Also, many non-pro t SEPs fail to stay active. For both types of platforms, the road to success is paved with a number of economic, legal and operational challenges, which directly stem from their innovative business model.

These multifaceted challenges motivate our overarching research question: How can platforms in the sharing economy deliver long-lasting value for their stakeholders and for society as a whole?

Answering this question calls for a truly interdisciplinary approach. Researchers in economics, law and operations worked on SEPs before, but the goal of this research project is to go beyond the intra-disciplinary tunnel vision and foster cooperation between researchers from these disciplines. Our objective with this research project is thus to conduct a ne-grained analysis of the implications of the sharing economy, combining researchers from economics, law and operations.

You will find below our recent publications in industrial organization, non profit economics.