Social Enterprises (SE) are a new component of most contemporary societies; their diversity and informality has made it challenging to conduct systematic research on them. Especially now, when many traditional employers are downsizing, it has become urgent to understand and communicate about new developments within the SE sector.
The overall aim of this paper is to discover how the theme of “participatory governance” has recently risen to a prominent position in international debates on SE. It is an important contribution to the discussion as such analysis has not appeared in any earlier publication. This paper also clarifies a recent modification of the framework proposed by Defourny and Nyssens (2012) for analyzing an “ideal-type” of SE; and conducts a literature review.
Inter-continental discussion between U.S. and Europe towards a unified conceptualization started around 2005-2006. In 2012, Defourny and Nyssens (2012), leading members of EMES (L’Emergence Des Entreprises Sociales formed in 1996 with support from European Union), proposed the framework of the “ideal-type” social enterprise with three dimensions: economic and entrepreneurial dimensions, social dimensions, and participatory governance. This proposal modified its earlier framework which was based on only two categories, economic indicators and social indicators.
The framework with three dimensions has become widely accepted. Based on this framework, the ICSEM (“International Comparative Social Enterprise Models”) project started in 2013 and now consists of over 150 researchers from over 40 countries in addition to U.S. and European countries. However, it has not been clearly understood how “participatory governance” with three main indicators (a high degree of autonomy, a decision-making power not based on capital ownership, and a participatory nature which involves various parties affected by the activity) has emerged as a leading category for understanding SE between 2005-6 and 2012, during which time inter-continental discussion thrived.
This paper addresses several questions: what have been the basic frameworks of SE analysis, what are the characteristics of participatory governance, how it rose to prominence, and what are the implications for further development. In order to address these questions, the first step is a literature review on 48 papers archived as EMES conference selected paper series; 22 from the 2nd international conference in 2009 and 26 from the 3rd international conference in 2011. All these papers have gone through the selection process of the academic committee of EMES. In this review therefore, the mainstream of academic study of SE is analyzed. This part will be constructed as follows: 1. to review and summary of each paper, 2. to compare methodology and research field, 3. to identify and to sub-categorize the themes, 4. to categorize sub-categories with comparisons of their differences and convergences.
The papers are categorized into 5 research domains: evaluation methods; partnership efforts; diversified development, modelling, and SE’s roles; development history; and institutions/policy with roles of government. The analysis uncovers four major points: 1. thriving attention to “proposition of evaluation method” and “attempts at partnership”, 2. accumulation of case studies leading to theorization, 3. introduction of evaluation methods and their empirical adoption, and 4. pursuit of various types and forms of partnership. As a result, “participatory governance” has risen to prominence to offer a further tool for SE to support people with unmet needs and to struggle against institutional isomorphism. Another role of social welfare might be to highlight how disadvantaged people can feel ownership of their lives based on their participation in SE.
Keywords: social enterprises, research, EMES, participatory governance, isomorphism
References
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Defourny J, Nyssens M (2012). The EMES approach of social enterprise in a
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Hoogendoorn, Pennings, Thurik (2010). What Do We Know About Social
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