Knowledge sharing between businesses and stakeholders for systemic and sustainable regional development. Insights in the agri-food sector

The paper interprets sustainable regional development (SRD) as an exchange ecosystem in which stakeholders provide reciprocal access to resources, benefiting both individual and systemic levels. We suggest that knowledge, as a shared and value-transcribed critical resource, nourishes a community’s motivational system (CMS), orienting it towards SRD. This inherently raises questions regarding the nature of social business models (SBM) that can best support community’s motivational system, as well as their sustainable regional development derivatives. Applying our theoretical framework to Agri-food Protection Consortia – a specific type of hybrid social, regional valueoriented business organization – we demonstrate how knowledge sharing among these social business models facilitates a community’s motivational system that support shared sustainable regional development. Methodologically, we employ the Fuzzy Expert System (FES) to analyse companies participating in the three most representative Italian consortia, aiming to empirically address the knowledge gap regarding the influence of social business model on sustainable regional development. We further propose practicable participatory strategic guidelines that balance informal and formal governance mechanisms while catalysing and enhancing the connection of strategic business initiatives for sustainable regional development