The conference’s thematic line addressed: Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
A statement of the empirical or theoretical question locating it within the scientific literature: The aim of this paper is to use an interactive approach to explore social entrepreneurial agency and local socio-spatial context in relation to self- and community-sustainability in the rural regions of a developing country. It focuses on how micro-level dynamics shape specific choices of individuals creating social enterprises. The paper builds on Kerlin’s (2013) Macro-Institutional Social Enterprise (MISE) framework which draws on the theory of historical institutionalism to advance understanding of how context influences the development of social enterprise and to propose a preliminary conceptual framework for social enterprise that spans regional differences.
A concise account of the empirical or theoretical question methodological approach: This paper complements the MISE framework by answering the following research questions: How do rural social enterprises emerge in a developing country? How do rural social enterprises interact with their local, socio-spatial context? What is the outcome of rural social enterprise activities? The developing country context has been selected as there has been little study on the emergence of social enterprise in that region. In order to gain novel insights, this paper focuses on rural regions so as to gauge how rural social enterprises interact with the local context offering a bottom-up approach of social enterprise hence contributing to Kerlin’s (2013) MISE framework.
The main argument of the paper: Social enterprise, broadly defined as addressing social issues through market strategies remains a contested concept. For instance, social enterprise scholars are increasingly addressing the influence of the environment/context on the development of social enterprise locally, regionally (Defourny & Kim, 2011; Defourny & Nyssens, 2010); and internationally (Kerlin, 2006; 2009; 2013). There have been various angles and dimensions taken to this effect. For example, Santos et al (2015) explored the influence of acute poverty, informality, colonial history, and ethnic group identity on the way social ventures perceive themselves and on their choice of activities in Africa. While Kerlin (2013) makes use of macro-level institutions to show how they put pressure on social enterprise organizations through opportunities and constraints to fulfill particular functions and be structured in specific ways. Apart from examining macro-level influences on the development of social enterprise, this paper provides an empirical study of micro-level institutions of rural social enterprises conducted in rural regions of a country in sub-Saharan Africa.
A statement of the main conclusions and their relevance to an international audience:
On the one hand what historical institutionalism brings to Kerlin’s (2013) macro institutions is that institutions establish a set of constraints and opportunities. Therefore, they shape the strategies that actors devise to confront the challenges they face both in the market, politics, and civil society. On the other hand, what historical institutionalism demonstrates in relation to micro institutions is that institutions do not form a ‘rigid matrix’ (Morgan, 2011) to which actors respond mechanically. As this study and other literature have revealed, social enterprises use local institutional rules creatively in order to come up with novel solutions to emerging problems such as the use of hybrid forms of organizations (Pache & Santos, 2012; Martin & Thompson, 2010) and the use of unique socio-spatial resources. Thus, historical institutionalism accentuates both the opportunities and constraints on action that they impose within a given context, both macro and micro, and agency in this scenario is not without structure and the other way round. Therefore, historical institutionalism provides a basis for theorizing that situates agents within both a macro- and micro-context that frames and shapes the strategies they are likely to pursue and with which they are likely to affect real change.
Main references:
Defourny, J., & Nyssens, M. (2010). Conceptions of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States: Convergences and divergences. Journal of social entrepreneurship, 1(1), 32-53.
Defourny, J., & Kim, S. (2011). Emerging models of social enterprise in eastern asia: A cross-country analysis. Social Enterprise Journal, 7(1), 86-111. doi:10.1108/17508611111130176.
Kerlin, J.A. (2006). Social enterprise in the United States and Europe: Understanding and learning from the differences. International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 17(3), pp. 246–262.
Kerlin, J. A. (2009). Social enterprise: A global comparison. US: University Press of New England.
Kerlin, J. A. (2013). Defining social enterprise across different contexts: A conceptual framework based on institutional factors. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(1), 84-108. doi:10.1177/0899764011433040.
Martin, F., & Thompson, M. (2010). Social enterprise: Developing sustainable businesses. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Morgan, G. (2011). The oxford handbook of comparative institutional analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rivera-Santos, M., Holt, D., Littlewood, D., & Kolk, A. (2015). Social entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa. Academy of Management Perspectives, 29(1), 72-91. doi:10.5465/amp.2013.0128.
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
