Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practices

Citation

Piboonrungroj, P. (2012), "Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practices", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 743-745. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552551211268157

The aim of this book is to develop an understanding of social enterprise through critical discussions of cognate theories and an exploration in various cases from the real world. Roley Ridley‐Duff and Mike Bull are the main authors of this book; some chapters (4, 9, 10 and 12) were co‐authored by others.

Even though this book is very useful for both students and researchers who would like to establish their understanding in social enterprise, the main target audience of this book are mainly students. Hence the book provides many useful contents, which can be used for in the classroom, such as clear and concise learning objectives and key arguments at the beginning of every chapter. Within chapters, cases and class exercises are provided. At the end of each chapter, together with a summary of learning, the book offers questions and possible essay assignments. Furthermore, each chapter provides further key readings with descriptions as well as useful many online resources.

One of the advantages of this book is its companion web site, which contains resources for both lecturers (instruction manuals, PowerPoint slides and additional case studies) and students (full‐text journal articles and links to relevant web sites). Moreover, the authors also innovatively use the YouTube video for their exercise (pp. 40‐1).

This book is divided into two parts, 12 chapters including postscript on the authors’ perspective of social enterprise in 2050 and also glossary of terms used in the book.

The first part of this book (Chapters 1‐5) aims to provide an understanding of the development of the concept of Social Enterprise by presenting a historical develop concepts and cognate theories of social enterprise. Contributions of different theoretical perspectives on the development of social enterprise theory are also discussed with various types of examples from the real world.

Chapter 1 provides foundation on the third sector in comparison to private and public sector in a three system of the economy. This chapter also discusses contributions of cognate theories to social enterprise theory. This chapter also uses a case of the film It's a Wonderful Life to explain the differences between first, second and third system and a case of a chemical company “the Scott Bader Group and the Scott Bader Commonwealth” is included in this chapter to develop better understanding of the definition of the third sector organisation.

Chapter 2 discusses the impacts and influence of New Public Management (NPM), which is an application of private management approach in the public sectors to understand how enterprise can be privatised. A response of the NPM in term of an emerging of community economic development is also evaluated in this chapter. The authors also use three contemporary cases (in 2003‐2008) to explain different forms and model of NPM.

Chapter 3 shows different views in the debate on social enterprise based on different definitions and perspectives from different continents including Europe, the UK and USA as well as movement internationally. This chapter also offers the view of social enterprise as an activities rather than a form of organisation. The authors use number of sources including seven cases to support their explanations on the concept of social enterprise.

Chapter 4 by Rory Ridley‐Duff, Pam Seanor and Mike Bull explains the theoretical foundation of social capital and also reviews the concept of ethical capital. This chapter discusses the different forms of social capital and their uses considering different theoretical perspectives. The chapter also provides a summary table of the implication of different theories of ethics (p. 91).

Chapter 5 presents a wider concept and theoretical aspect of social enterprise from globalisation and international perspective including variety of insightful examples such as a case of Fair Trade and globalisation as well as the Grameen Bank (a bank for the poor) initiated by Mohammad Yunus in Bangladesh.

The second part (Chapters 6‐12) of this book aims to complement the theoretical perspective from the first part with the current practice of social enterprise. In this part, authors still use real cases to discuss the challenges for social entrepreneurs in order to create and sustain their social enterprise.

Chapter 6 presents and discusses a series of key practical debates among social enterprise academics covering the definition, theory, form, process, approaches and major challenges of the social enterprise management considering current management issues and potential strategies. The case of The Big Issue and its founder, John Bride, is used in the exercise on the topics of participatory and representative democracy.

Chapter 7 examines a proper identity of a social enterprise and its supportive legal form considering multi‐stakeholder approaches and rationales for their legal modes by providing informative examples from four cases. One of the outstanding parts of this chapter is an illustration of the holistic view of identities and legalities in the development of social enterprise (Figure 7.2, p. 139). The authors also provide a table summarising key lessons learned from those cases on multi‐stakeholder model rules for social enterprise (Table 7.4, pp. 144‐5).

Chapter 8 uses three contrasting cases (Seedley and Lanworthy Trust, Broomby and SoftContract) to discuss a traditional approach with reflexive and critical approaches to strategic management and planning for social enterprise. The authors started by conceptualise strategic management. Then, they further discuss those cases on how strategic management and planning can be operationalised in the context of social enterprise. Moreover, this chapter also provides two cases to discuss the strategic management diagnostic tool “Balance” (Case 8.4) and use the case of Chalestown and Lower Kersal New Deal for Communities as an exercise for such a diagnostic tool.

Chapter 9 by Rory Ridley‐Duff and Tracey Chadwick‐Coule further discusses a debate on practical application of governance, human resource management (HRM) and employee relations to understand the people management in social enterprise. The authors apply a multi‐disciplinary approach considering both owner and work‐force perspective via the lens of HRM and employee relations, respectively. Despite the complexity of different perspectives and aspects from various theories, tables and figures illustrated through out the chapter are useful to summarise the topics.

Chapter 10 by Rory Ridley‐Duff and Pam Seanor reviews and discusses the potential application of leadership theories to social entrepreneurship. Collective forms of social entrepreneurships covering cooperative and associative entrepreneurship are also discussed. The chapter also considers the differences of individual and collective approaches to social entrepreneurship supported by two short cases (10.1 and 10.2) based on opinions of social enterprise entrepreneurs.

Chapter 11 considers different forms of income generation and financial strategies for social enterprise especially on potential funding resources including the roles of social investment funds and community banking. The authors consider management of income stream and social investment for social enterprise using examples from charities and trading in the UK.

Chapter 12 by Rory Ridley‐Duff, Pam Seanor and Mike Bull examines various aspects of performance management and assessment for social enterprise. Moreover, this chapter specifically discusses the roles of two complementary approaches to social financial accounting namely social accounting and audit (SAA) and social return on investment (SROI). SAA is a useful qualitative approach considering both internal and external view of organisation and its stakeholders respectively. SROI, which is developed from “cost‐benefit analysis” in economics, is a robust quantitative measurement to assess the impact of social enterprise by considering inputs, activities, output and outcomes of social enterprise.

Furthermore, this book projects an outlook of Social Enterprise in 2050 in the postscript, which is independently drawn from an individual view of both author based on their own works. Glossary in the end of the books also provides a concise description of abbreviations and technical terms used in this book.

In summary, this book provides not only relevant theories but also the real practice of social enterprise. The book critically discussed various practical management issues of social enterprise as well as the impact on the society and economy. Many contents in this book such as cases, exercise and other resources in the book and in the companion web site are very useful for any class on social enterprise.