Place-based leadership: Reflections on scale, agency and theory

Abstract

This article draws on the concepts of scale, agency and theory to offer some reflections on the leadership of regions, cities and communities. It builds upon the work of A. Beer and T. Clower ([2013]. Mobilizing leadership in cities and regions, Regional Studies, Regional Science, forthcoming) who call for a more focussed and theoretically informed enquiry on place-based leadership. First, it argues that scale matters in the leadership of territory and the skills and resources required to manage cities compared to small communities will differ greatly. Second, conceptions of placebased leadership need to remain open minded about where leadership can be derived and the potential for bottom-up, creative responses to shape the leadership of place. Finally, there has been work in other disciplines, most notably, policy network theory, that might be used to inform an understanding of place-based leadership. Bringing the literatures together on policy network theory, territorial governance and leadership offers a fruitful avenue for future research.