Engaging external actors in delivering public services has been adopted by countries of different backgrounds (Donahue, 1989; Jing and Savas, 2009). Public services are now created through the public policy process, regulated by the government but provided by “public service organisations” (PSOs) existing in or between the public, private and third sectors rather than by the public agencies alone (Osborne and Strokosch, 2013). Social enterprise (SE), as an example of hybrid PSO (Vidal, 2008) is working in line with the government to provide public services (Evers, 2008).
Significant differences are found internationally in what SE means (Kerlin, 2010) and lead to no universally accepted definition. The only definite characteristics of SE are the primacy of social aims and the employment of trading activities (Peattie and Morley, 2008). The wide-ranging debate in the academia mirrors the policy attention paid to SE (Teasdale, 2012). Despite the problematic conceptualisation, many governments promote SE as a suitable provider that can contribute to better public services and thus implement a series of policy support. Although SE is viewed with high expectation, basic questions about whether this kind of hybrid organisation is sustainable and whether it can provide sustainable public services remain unanswered.
Through studying SEs providing public services in Scotland, this research will examine SEs’ sustainability from two aspects: what internal and external factors affect SEs’ achievement of its dual mission and how they preserve the hybridity as an SE; how SEs maintain the service demand as a PSO. Investigating and comparing the views and opinions of three sets of involved actors, SE practitioners, government officials and public service users, this paper aims to find out the contingencies under which SEs can achieve sustainability and to further discuss if they can contribute to sustainable public services.
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OSBORNE, S.P. and STROKOSCH, K., 2013. It takes two to tango? Understanding the Co‐production of public services by integrating the services management and public administration perspectives. British Journal of Management, 24(S1), pp. S31-S47.
VIDAL, I., 2008. The Role of Social Enterprises in Europe: A Core Element or a Distraction in the Provision of Public Services? In: S.P. OSBORNE, ed, The Third Sector in Europe: Prospects and Challenges. London: Routledge, pp. 309-326.
EVERS, A., 2008. Hybrid Organisations: Background, Concepts, Challenges. In: S.P. OSBORNE, ed, The Third Sector in Europe: Prospects and challenges. London: Routledge, pp. 279-292.
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