The Quest for Sustainable Communities in Isolated and in Urban Settings

Intermediaries such as NGOs have a key role in promoting socioeconomic development of poor and marginalised communities. In this quest for positive social change, entrepreneurship and the fostering of an entrepreneurial culture have been advocated as a means to allow endurance of social programmes once intermediaries leave the community. The aim of this study was to unveil the circumstances which facilitate or inhibit the institutional work of intermediaries for social change, combining institutional entrepreneurship and social capital theories. The research focussed on the work of a Brazilian NGO in two different contexts: in an isolated rural community in the Amazon basin, and in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil. Through multiple case study analysis and interviewing both NGO project managers and community beneficiaries on project results and challenges, this study sheds light on how the existence of a community logic helps achieving goals of socioeconomic development by taking entrepreneurial actions, and how this community logic is affected by geographic and socioeconomic characteristics of each community. This study adds to previous academic research showing the role community leaders have in building on community’s assets and on intermediaries’ assistance to change their social reality.