Can social enterprises achieve resilience in their delivery of public services and what are the contingencies?

Social enterprise (SE), as an example of hybrid organisation within the third sector, works in line with the government to provide public services in Scotland. Given the fact that SE has the unsolved internal conflict between... [ view full abstract ]

Social enterprise (SE), as an example of hybrid organisation within the third sector, works in line with the government to provide public services in Scotland. Given the fact that SE has the unsolved internal conflict between its social and economic missions, as well as its uncertain interactions with the external environment while resilience emphasises the stable state and stable relationships with external environments, is resilience achievable for the SE? Or does the SE necessarily have to maintain the stable state and stable relationships so as to be resilient? In spite that there is a lack of empirical studies into these issues, governments are enthusiastic about SE development. In the present public service reform, the Scottish Government aims to empower the community to take more responsibility in the public services delivery at local level. The Government supports SEs for the purposes of “sustainable economic growth” and playing “a full role in public service reform through a greater involvement in the design and delivery of services”.
This research aims to address the gap both in the literature and in the empirical study of whether SEs can achieve resilience. Three research questions are proposed as follows:
1. How do external environments affect SE’s resilience?
2. What strategies does the SE adopt to achieve resilience and why?
3. Under what contingencies can the SE achieve resilience?
The SE in the recent context has been seen as a series of enterprising activities or managerial practices, therefore this research will focus on the strategies that affect SE’s resilience in dynamic external environments.
This research consists of exploratory interviews and 4 in-depth SE case studies. The exploratory interviews regard exploring different stakeholders’ perceptions and understandings of SE and SE resilience. They help to generate an empirical description of the external environment where SEs in Scotland operate. The case studies are concerned with exploring the propositions that emerge from the literature and exploratory interviews. It is equally concerned with analysing when and why the focal SEs adopt certain strategies and whether these strategies contribute or undermine their resilience. Combined with the empirical description of the external environment, an initial model of SE resilience contingencies will be proposed.
This research anticipates contributions to the organisational theory by increasing the understanding of resilience in multi-mission organisations in the third sector arena and analysing resilience contingencies in the example of SE. The implications will be discussed in the context of public services delivery, where new types of third sector organisation are involved. It equally attempts to contribute to the existing literature of public management and to the newly emerging literature, such as New Public Governance. Practically, this research aims to help SEs better understand uncertain environments and seize opportunities to be resilient. It also aims to provide the governments and SE umbrella organisations with recommendations to enhance SE resilience and to enhance public services delivery as well.