Concepts and classifications of social enterprise in Australia

This paper is a first attempt to document the context and nature of social enterprise models in Australia as part of the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models (ICSEM) project. The paper has been prepared by the... [ view full abstract ]

This paper is a first attempt to document the context and nature of social enterprise models in Australia as part of the International Comparative Social Enterprise Models (ICSEM) project. The paper has been prepared by the authors, with input from a number of key informants (see acknowledgements) with historical knowledge of social enterprise developments in Australia. The following analysis thus represents a joint effort to document the evolution of social enterprise in this country.
In presenting this analysis, we acknowledge the limitations of constructing a universally true account social enterprise in Australia. As Teasdale (2012) observes, ‘social enterprise’ is a fluid and contested concept, constructed in and through a diversity of discourses by different actors. While we seek to explicate dominant discourses of social enterprise in Australia in the proceeding discussion, we recognise that, in doing so we are participating in the discursive construction of the field we hope to describe.
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