The research questions are empirically addressed with the help of a comparative case study on Mönchengladbach and Krefeld.

The comparative research design makes it possible to describe the differences in the implementation of CRR activities and to classify them with regard to their effect on regional innovative capacity and social innovations. The aim of the comparison, which is based on the so-called most similar systems design, is to identify factors that promote and inhibit CRR and resonance and to classify them with regard to their effectiveness for social innovations.

Mönchengladbach and Krefeld were selected as two cities that, after the first structural change with the decline of the textile and clothing industry, are now undergoing a further structural change with the phase-out of lignite mining and power generation, only about 70 years later. The cities can be considered as respresentative cases for cities affected by the decline of key regional industries and suggest a transferability of the findings to similar cities. Against this background, their comparison allows to describe differences in the implementation of CRR activities and to classify them with regard to their effect on regional innovation capacity as well as for social innovations.

A look at the Global North and, in particular, old industrial regions shows that major societal challenges such as climate change and demographic change are accompanied by a number of seemingly smaller challenges such as structural change, migration of specialists and demographic aging, which definitely vary from region to region and call for individual, location-specific responses. In meeting this challenge and shaping regional change processes, the issue of corporate responsibility for the region is becoming increasingly important. Under the keyword "Corporate Regional Responsibility", CRR for short, the research project R³ deals with the question of how endogenous potentials can be strengthened with the help of CRR - especially in regions affected by structural change - and how innovations and change can be made sustainable.

The concept of "corporate regional responsibility" (CRR) ties in with work on corporate social responsibility (CSR), i.e. the voluntary assumption of social responsibility by (primarily, but not exclusively) economically active organizations with the overriding goal of economic, ecological and social sustainability. In particular, this involves measures that go beyond legal requirements and offer added value for society. In the understanding of the R³ project, CRR thus encompasses all CSR measures with a connection to the local and regional environment of the organizations that also have the potential to influence urban and regional development and contribute to solving societal challenges at the regional level.

The reflections on resonance are based on the work of sociologist Hartmut Rosa. He asks which social dynamics promote or hinder possibilities for a good life. Resonance theory (Rosa 2016) is a further development of and response to his previously developed work on "acceleration theory" (Rosa 2005). It assumes that our contemporary modern society in the Western world is subject to an all-encompassing acceleration phenomenon that leads to each individual feeling increasingly pressed for time. Among the dimensions of acceleration, Rosa counts technical acceleration, the acceleration of social change, and the acceleration of the pace of life.

According to Rosa, however, the answer is not deceleration but resonance. "Resonance is a form of world-relationship formed by affectation and emotion, intrinsic interest and self-efficacy expectation, in which subject and world touch and transform each other at the same time." (Rosa 2018: 298) In this sense, experiences of recognition typically form experiences of resonance; experiences of disregard can be interpreted as experiences of alienation. Here, resonance describes the relationship between an individual (subject) and at least one object along different axes: (1) horizontally between two people, e.g., family, friends, politics; (2) diagonally between people and activity, e.g., object relations, work, learning, sports, and consumption; (3) horizontally between people to environment, e.g., religion, nature, art, history. In the R³ project, the research on resonance refers to regional actors in the field of CRR and social innovation and their capacity to shape a living mode of relationship with each other, with regard to their activities (in the field of CRR or social innovation) and their spatial environment .

According to Rosa, various conditions influence the experience of resonance, and these conditions are at best facilitating, but by no means guaranteeing resonance. In addition to contextual, cultural, and structural conditions, these include institutional conditions. The latter include formal institutions (e.g., bureaucratic constraints, requirements, documentation obligations) and informal institutions (e.g., values and norms). According to Rosa, institutional conditions are the most influential in terms of resonance and alienation experiences. They are the focus of R³'s research.