Purpose
In 2022, the EMES Network celebrated its 20th anniversary. The purpose of this paper is to trace the intellectual path of social enterprise (SE) research that has unfolded through some of the ...major EMES research projects.
Design/methodology/approach
This journey is recounted through three major milestones: the emergence and development of the EMES approach; the identification of various SE schools of thought; the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models (ICSEM) Project.
Findings
The first section digs into the roots of the EMES approach – an ideal-type which allowed researchers to explore an SE field that was then largely unknown. In a second stage, a reading grid was developed to identify the different SE conceptions, their convergences and their divergences. In a third step, the ICSEM Project, acknowledging the impossibility to provide a single, universal definition of SE, aimed to identify SE models across the world. Defourny and Nyssens developed an SE typology and made the hypothesis that it was neither country-specific nor even context-specific. Based on the EMES ideal-type (which constituted a particularly relevant tool to inform the diversity of SE models), data were collected on over 700 SEs worldwide; three major SE models were found in almost all the countries covered.
Originality/value
This contribution does not aim to summarise all the – numerous and fruitful – research projects carried out by EMES members, but to show the common thread that runs through several of them.
Building on the ‘entrepreneuring as emancipation’ perspective, I explore the emancipatory potential of social entrepreneurship as a means to disengage individuals enthralled to ideology and trapped ...by their own past behavior. I studied two former religious-based terrorists from Indonesia, and their social enterprise, a cafe chain, which has successfully emancipated 10 ex-terrorists. In this paper, I show how engagement in entrepreneurship can be emancipatory through allowing individuals not only to escape some ideological constraints but also to construct new meaning in life and new social roles and connections that provide a platform for building a new future. Importantly, because social entrepreneurship as a form of organizing permits autonomy from an exclusive focus on profitability, it afforded the entrepreneurs I studied to achieve a degree of emancipation both for themselves and also for those they served. My results also have substantial practical value in elucidating a potentially valuable tool in efforts to reduce terrorist violence. I develop a grounded process model of social entrepreneurship as emancipatory work to summarize the study and offer avenues for future research.
•Social entrepreneurship as instrument of emancipation•Market- and relations-based emancipation•Reformed terrorists as the legitimate liberators of other terrorists•Brotherhood economic model
Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenges that human civilization now faces. To a large extent, attempts at mitigating or addressing climate change are performed by Changemaker ventures: ...small scale, entrepreneurial ventures that attempt to combine market orientation with social or ecological value-creation. The Changemaker phenomenon is particularly prevalent in the new food economy, where it is driving a fundamental restructuring of rural economies in Europe as well as in Asia and the Americas. But how do market oriented entrepreneurial ventures respond to climate change? Based on six years of interviews and participant observation with Italian rural Changemakers this article suggests that in the absence of collective organization, the Changemaker response to climate change is market by a paralysing perplexity, similar to that of resource-poorer peasants in the South. Without a strong forms of collective solidarity and deliberation the experience of climate change cannot be incorporated within a coherent view of the future. The results can be understood as a ‘weak signal’ that has implications for the study of peasant responses to climate change as well as for theoretical reflexions on the viability of changemaker-style social enterprises in promoting coherent strategies for survival in the Anthropocene.
Using the study of hybridization in evolutionary biology as metaphorical inspiration, I offer a thought experiment about the emergence and proliferation of social enterprise and the influence of ...hybrid organizing on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. After establishing a number of analogues between biological and organizational hybrids, I analyze the degree to which social enterprise may be indicative of hybrid speciation – i.e., a new organizational form – versus introgressive hybridization – i.e., a variant of a more traditional organizational form. I then use the metaphor to examine whether social enterprise: (1) possesses distinct rules and features, (2) is shaped by or shaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem, (3) still remains a hybrid organization, and (4) might even be considered an invasive species.
•Proposes a biological metaphor of organizational hybrids as biological hybrids•Introduces speciation and introgression as alternative ways in which social enterprise interacts with the entrepreneurial ecosystem•Considers whether social enterprise can and should be distinguished from traditional organizational forms•Questions when social enterprise would cease to qualify as a hybrid organizational form and whether it may be considered an invasive species
This article examines the challenges and opportunities for novel governance instruments for labour market inclusion of foreign‐born citizens, developed by local governments in collaboration with ...non‐profit civil society organisations in Sweden. It is informed by the case of the collaborative arrangements developed between the city of Gothenburg and work integration social enterprises (WISE). The article builds upon collaborative governance and innovation literature and focuses specifically on the first reserved public procurements for buying work training and other services from WISE. Our findings show how a tool that originates from a market governing mechanism can develop into a collaborative governance and innovation instrument. The design and implementation of the reserved procurements set in motion collaborative innovation through creation of collaborative spaces, joint ownership and empowerment, and by turning market governance mechanisms into collaborative governance. First, the ‘looseness’ and ‘openness’ of the governmental arrangements and collaboration spaces created by local actors enabled collaborative innovation. Second, the longstanding innovativeness and collaboration of WISE also played an important role in the development of this collaborative instrument. Third, the small scale of WISE and the larger scale of municipal contracts resulted in scaling up strategies that helped shape collaborative, rather than competitive, practices among WISE, as well as the implementation and diffusion of the innovation. We end the article by discussing the study's implications for collaborative governance and innovation between local governments and civil society.
Due to the influence of numerous factors that make it difficult to find the innovative solutions to social and environmental problems that social enterprises deal with, there is a need for a joint ...action of social enterprises, both with each other and with other actors operating in their environment. In order to overcome the challenges more easily, which they face in their business, social enterprises and social entrepreneurs should take advantage of networking. Business networks can bring many benefits to their members, and networks in the social sector are of particular importance. Recently, networking has taken place within the broader framework of so-called ecosystems. With this in mind, the aim of this paper is to shed more light on the specifics of networking of social enterprises, i.e. their connection to ecosystems. The Social Entrepreneurship Network (SEN) has played a key role in the development of this sector in European countries. Also in the Republic of Serbia, networking of social enterprises with civil society organizations has significantly contributed to the creation of public policies and the promotion of social enterprises.
This paper aims to advance our knowledge of the relationship between social enterprise and local government. As social enterprise lies at the crossroads of government, market, and civil society, ...dynamic interactions exist between all actors. While governments play an important role in developing social enterprises, so far scholars have paid little attention to the specific role of local governments in the social enterprise ecosystem. To help fill this research gap, this paper investigates what motivates local governments to promote social enterprises and how effective their efforts are. Applying resource dependence theory, we test two hypotheses: (i) the fiscal constraints on local governments are the driving force behind their promotion of social enterprises, and (ii) their efforts to support social enterprises are effective. Using the data of 223 South Korean local governments over the 2011-2017 period and applying event history analysis and fixed-effects models, we find that there is mixed evidence for fiscal constraints being the reason local governments promote social enterprise-it depends on which fiscal constraint measures and dependent variables are being analysed. But we find evidence that local governmental efforts to promote social enterprises are effective.
Rural social enterprises (RSEs) are an emerging actor that applies market-based approaches to implement a social mission: steering social and economic development. They thus contribute to addressing ...intractable challenges such as poverty and inequality disproportionately faced in rural areas. However, there is limited empirical evidence of their performance particularly regarding critical success factors (CSFs) and their interdependencies in influencing RSE performance in developing countries’ rural contexts. Our study aims to contribute to closing this gap by examining the interrelationships between internal (e.g., business planning) and external (e.g., financial and training supports) critical success factors (CSFs), and the performance of RSEs. The study uses survey data from 521 rural Ugandan RSEs, which is analysed using structural equation modelling and importance performance map analysis. Results show business planning and training support as key influencing CSFs for improving RSE performance. These results offer guidance for improving RSE performance to Ugandan RSE practitioners, supporters and policymakers as well as those in related developing country rural context. The study also provides initial findings valuable to researchers interested in advancing RSE performance.
•Rural Social enterprises (RSEs) have been identified as key development strategies.•RSEs are vital in developing countries that disproportionately face poverty and inequality.•Empirical evidence of RSEs’ performance is sparse mainly in developing countries.•We unravel critical success factors and their influence on RSE performance.•Business planning and training support are key to improving RSE performance.
We empirically examine social innovation and openness through a survey of social enterprise hybrids in the United Kingdom (UK). Social innovation refers to new products, processes, and services that ...respond to grand challenges. Social enterprises pursue economic, social, and environmental goals but vary in their goal orientation, namely the relative importance ascribed to such goals. We first explore the relationships between commercial, social, and environmental goal orientation and social innovation performance. Next, we consider the moderating impact of openness to external knowledge and ideas on social innovation performance. Our analysis finds positive and significant relationships between commercial and social goal orientation and social innovation performance, but no relationship with environmental goal orientation. In addition, the use of external sources of knowledge and ideas positively strengthens these relationships for both commercial and social goal orientation but not for environmental goal orientation. Our results reveal some important influences on social innovation, openness, and hybrid organizing.
Plain English Summary
Headline: The more social enterprises focus on both commercial and social goals, the more successful they are in improving their social innovation performance.
Social innovation refers to new products, processes, and services that respond to a range of social challenges such as poverty, inequality, homelessness, health, and environmental issues.
Our study suggests that the more social enterprises focus on both commercial and social goals, the higher their social innovation performance. In addition, the more open innovation-oriented social enterprises are, that is, the more they use external sources of knowledge and ideas, the more they can benefit from their commercial and social goals to improve their social innovation performance.
Implications of our research for practice: social enterprises are encouraged not only to focus on both commercial and social goals but also to build relationships with external stakeholders. These external stakeholders can provide information on entrepreneurial opportunities, how to respond to problems and market and government failures, and how to remain successful while collaborating with a range of partners.
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