Housing associations's new strategic choices
June 25, 2015 | 1 min read
What strategic choices will housing associations make between 2015 and 2020 because of recent changes in their force field? This question was central to the last phase of a multi-year research program on the future of housing associations. Among other things, the study was based on a survey among more than 100 housing associations and interviews with association directors and partners.
Image: © Nationale Beeldbank
Availability, affordability, and financial continuity will be central to the strategic considerations of housing associations in the coming years, according to this study. Corporations feel compelled to make choices in their organization's mission, in particular because of developments driven by policy and legislation (such as the landlord task, the core task discussion, rent increases, and the separation of commercial and social real estate).
Against this background, cooperation within a network of different public and private parties becomes more important than ever before. The housing association can act as an initiator and director in this network, without assuming all of the responsibility. The researchers plead in this regard for “social entrepreneurship 2.0.” Associations take their social responsibility by setting others (such as tenants, municipalities, and care institutions) in motion. This creates demand-driven, flexible, and informal forms of cooperation between parties in varying compositions, such as in the case of residential care cooperatives. Social entrepreneurship 2.0 also calls for a different way of working (together) within the association’s organization with more focus on smart business and financial continuity.
On Monday, June 15, 2015 Professor Dr. Cor van Montfort handed Prof. Dr. Ir. Kees Mouwen the first copy of the book “Van meedeinen naar koers zetten” (“From rolling along to leading”). Professor Kees Mouwen was the originator of a multi-year research project about the future of housing associations in collaboration with Aedes. This publication by Prof. Dr. Cor van Montfort, Dr. Martin Schulz, and Eva Buwalda-Groeneweg MA is the concluding piece of the project.
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Montfort, C. van, Schulz, M. & Buwalda-Groeneweg, E. (2015). Van meedeinen naar koers zetten. (in Dutch) Tilburg: TIAS School for Business and Society.
Montfort, C. van, Schulz, M., Metze, T., Van de Wijdeven, T. Brandsen, T., Helderman, J.-K. & Frankowski, A. (2014). Voorbij de waan van de dag: Over mogelijke toekomsten voor de sociale huisvesting in Nederland. (in Dutch) Tilburg: TiasNimbas Business School.