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Place Building Organizations

Place building organizations is not a metaphor in the sense of a convenient description of what an organization does or how they behave. The term Place Building is a conceptual view, created from research of Dr. David Thomas-assistant professor management at the University of Northern Colorado, of how an organization co-constructs place in a community.

Place building organizations are both a way of looking at organizations as cultural agents in a community and as an extension of socially responsible behavior that broadens and enriches how an organization contributes.

In the first sense we look at the stated priorities and the authority the organization exercises (its mission statement) and the consequences of those priorities and authority in relationship to place (the natural world, social relationships, economic relationships, its social contract or ethics and the material environment). And in the second sense, as a cultural agent that is largely defined by how it interacts with its stakeholders.

Most important, this is not a judgment on the value of organizations or their contributions, rather a means to conceptually identify a type of organization and a practical guide to dealing with them that can help communities recruit best fitting organizations and how to optimize contributions from resident organizations.

How an organization values place is an important construct for several reasons: first, it can tell us something about the organization’s culture, what it considers valuable and how meaningful its role might be in a community. Second, place, while a widely defined term, requires some specificity to gather its application here. So, here I propose five specific realms of place that are unique to what an organization may do in a community.

Realms of Place

Researchers agree that place is a multi-dimensional concept including the natural world, the built environment, social relationships, economic relationships, patterns of interaction, as well as socially constructed meanings about each dimension; however, the models they offer for helping us to understand these dimensions vary. Geographer Robert Sack identifies the dimensions of place as including nature (synonymous with space), social relations (the economy, political institutions, families, etc.) and meaning (perceptions and theories of the other two realms) (1997, p. 28). Per Gustafson (2005) found that the meanings associated with places revolve around three primary themes, self, others, and the environment, which includes both the built environment and the natural world (p. 10).

Drawing on these models of place, we have diagrammed the five realms of place that are particularly relevant to our discussion: the natural world, social relationships, economic relationships, its social contract or ethics and the material environment.

Nature includes the natural—as opposed to man-made—elements, forces, and spaces. These include the rocks and trees, hills and valleys, wind and rain, climate and gravity.

Social Relations is the realm of human interaction, which includes the full spectrum of interactions between people whether between strangers, family members, or co-workers. Social relationships are defined by the organization’s efforts to build trust and reciprocity which can lead to the creation of new institutions and the redesign of existing ones to increase the community’s capacity and access to networks inside and outside the community.

The Material Environment can be described as how compatible and innovative its architecture and design/infrastructure fits the community and creates a sense of place—man-made buildings, roads, and other structures.

Economic relationships are defined as supporting commerce, attracting or at least 	supporting an effort to build economic vitality with respect to the other realms. Growth is seen as a means to an end, and not an end in itself.

Nature	or the natural environment is constructed to mean how the organization advocates for creating environmental sustainability through its business and operational strategies.

Ethics, described as answering the call to how the organization lives or how it “ought” to 	live in a community. Its implied and explicit social contract with its community and stakeholders that build its legitimacy and ultimately its competitive advantage for both community and organization.

An organization values place in relation to each of the five realms of place relative to its own needs. These organizations then are situated on the place building continuum based in part on its longevity in the community, its industry, competition, financial stability, economics and owner ideology. Finally, place building, while it shares some aspects of traditional social responsibility (SR), place building describes and evaluates how an organization “comprehensively” values place and offers a way to prescribe strategies.