Different geographical contexts can affect how social enterprises operate, set up their strategies or how they are defined by scholars. In Europe social enterprises are often placed in the social economy (Amin, 2003,... [ view full abstract ]
Different geographical contexts can affect how social enterprises operate, set up their strategies or how they are defined by scholars.
In Europe social enterprises are often placed in the social economy (Amin, 2003, Defourny and Nyssens, 2008), their main supporter is the government, which enables them to focus more on their social mission. In the same time in the USA or Australia social enterprises are often placed within the fourth sector (Sabeti, 2011; Eversole, 2013 a) and, particularly in the USA, the emphasis is on the market-based solutions and on the high ratio of the earned income (Defourny and Nyssens, 2008 and 2010; Kerlin 2006).
Reviewing the literature focusing on social enterprises and their role in rural development it became clear that different scholars understand development differently. There are scholars who connect development with economic growth, while others claim that the aim to increase economic performance cannot be the sign of development. Lányi et al. (2013) understand development as the steps towards environmental sustainability.
In recent scientific debates meanings of local and regional development are being questioned and there is a tendency towards a deeper understanding of development, which includes cultural, political, environmental concerns too. This approach requires more qualitative assessment, including wellbeing, equalities, political and cultural expression (e.g. Pike et al., 2007).
Eversole (2013 b) studies the role of social entrepreneurship in a multi-dimensional understanding of rural development (Eversole, 2013 b), including the cultural, political and environmental aspects besides the economic.
Getting inspired from the multi-dimensional (alternative) understanding of development I have formulated the following research question:
To what extent do social enterprises of Hungary and Germany contribute to an alternative rural development?
In order to gain an in-depth understanding of what role social entrepreneurship might be playing in a multi-dimensional understanding of rural development, I have chosen to conduct qualitative case studies in Hungary and Germany. Despite the fact that these countries have different contextual background, the process of peripheralisation, such as depopulation, globalisation of markets, cultures and values, continuous shortage of investment capital etc. (Lang, 2011), can be observed in both of them.
I am aiming to research not just the social enterprises themselves, but the local communities, these enterprises attempt to affect. My timeline for the empirics is between November 2015 and September 2016.
(1) Social enterprises and their relationship with the local society
3-3 case study social enterprises are planned to be selected from the two countries to represent a cross-section of industries, sizes, backgrounds and missions, while not claiming to be representative of the full range of social enterprises in Hungary or in Germany.
I aim to conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with the key drivers of the selected social enterprises and with their stakeholders, such as employees, suppliers, local authorities, foundations, depending on the nature of the social enterprise. The expected number of semi-structured interviews is between 20 and 40.
During the interviews I will build on my observations too. I am using observation as a technique also at my host institution, which is a social enterprise itself and is engaged in bottom-up regional development in Brandenburg, Germany.
(2) Local community and their approach towards social enterprises
A special group of stakeholders, the local society of my case study social enterprises will be of particular interest for me. I am interested in how the local society, that my case study social enterprises affect feel about social enterprises. The source of this research will be ethnography.
Notes
On request I am glad to send my references.
My project is an ongoing PhD research project within RegPol². (http://www.regpol2.eu/)
The expected date for finishing my research is August 2017.
During the period of my research project (01. Sept. 2014-31. Aug. 2017) I am employed at Social Impact gGmbH as an EU-Researcher.
