Critical Reflections on the Development of the Social Enterprise Sector in the UK

Theme 6. Institutionalization, scaling up and public policies EMES Conference, Louvain. June 2017. Spear, Roger. Open University and Roskilde University.ABSTRACT The institutional trajectories of the main SE models has to be... [ view full abstract ]

Theme 6. Institutionalization, scaling up and public policies

EMES Conference, Louvain. June 2017.

Spear, Roger. Open University and Roskilde University.

ABSTRACT

The institutional trajectories of the main SE models has to be related not just to national policy discourse, but to the other institutions shaping the profile of social enterprises: legal frameworks used by social enterprises, public policies and programmes, major financial supports, or other tools such as norms or accreditation, federations of which social enterprises are members, private charters to which they subscribe. But the interaction between these different institutional influences has not always been as might be expected, with conflicting tendencies sometimes leading to unintended consequences. 

Social enterprise may be formed de novo from new starts, and from reconfiguration of related fields such as the voluntary sector becoming more market oriented.  In both cases, but particularly in the latter case there are competing framings and institutional configurations, as well as diverse policy arrangements thus reconfiguration may face many different kinds of problems. 

The UK provides a useful context for examining the influence of these factors as it has one of the most developed policy frameworks for social enterprise, and a highly developed social enterprise sector.  The voluntary and charitable sector has been subject to considerable policy measures transforming their contexts towards markets and mixed economies, it is clear that responses have been mixed, with resistance (Oliver, 1991; Buckingham, 2010), thus the reconfiguration of charities towards becoming social enterprise has been problematic.

Co-operatives have been less subject to such policy measures. But different patterns of social entrepreneurship are important to explain the varied picture of new social enterprise being formed; for example with regard to  co-operatives, substantial numbers of co-operatively structured community businesses, and energy cooperatives have been formed  – possibly due to good institutional support (Coops UK, and Plunkett Foundation);  as well as the impressive example of co-operative trust schools, which have been greatly facilitated through the institutional support of the Co-operative College.   But there is weaker performance, with declining numbers, of worker-owned businesses, but with increasing size; and relatively few care co-ops – could indicate an entrepreneurship problem, or the significance of institutional entrepreneurship; and similarly relatively few, but probably growing numbers of freelancer co-ops (NB no detailed data on these). 

This paper draws on the UK contribution to the ICSEM project, and critically examines these institutional factors on social enterprise trajectories; the paper will reflect on the following questions and issues:

• The role (and limits) of policy discourse (UK);  discourse may help legitimise different types of social enterprise, but does it help shape entrepreneurial practice?
• Conflicting elements of policy: contracting size vs contracting preferences; (social value act);
• Hybridity and institutions: in UK social enterprise hybrids are not new, but are substantially institutionalised; how does this impact on reconfiguration
• Responses to institutional reshaping of the third sector, and to what extent can we see resistance (Oliver 1991)?
• How can we explain failures: in public service delivery eg of WISE? And the failure of nonprofits and coops to develop responses to opportunities in certain fields.

This paper concludes by considering whether the high degree of hybridity amongst current social enterprise both within the sector, and across the state/business boundaries raises questions about future trajectories and convergence or institutionalisation of types of social enterprise, or semi-permanent hybridisation.  While there is considerable scope for further research, particularly on for-profit social enterprise (and public service mutuals), and the extent to which they will succumb to isomorphic pressures, institutional support could well support the continuation of 3 types: charitable social enterprise, co-operative social enterprise, and community interest companies.  Although based on analysis of the UK experience, the issues and the theoretical approach has much wider relevance to international contexts.

References

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