Building the concept of social enterprise through negotiations

There is a large body of research on institutional structures and logics that create an organizational form. However, the role of actors or movements in institution-building projects has not been fully studied (Greenwood,... [ view full abstract ]

There is a large body of research on institutional structures and logics that create an organizational form. However, the role of actors or movements in institution-building projects has not been fully studied (Greenwood, Oliver, Suddaby, & Sahlin-Andersson, 2008; Powell, Packalen, & Whittington, 2010). Some scholars (Davis & Zald, 2005; Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008) have tried to bridge institutional and social movement approaches using the term institutional entrepreneurship in order to answer the question “how and why an organization emerges and changes” through activities of actors. A neo-institutional perspective views institutional fields are consisted of multiple logics, indeterminacy, ambiguities or contradictions (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007; Schneiberg, 2007; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000; Seo & Creed, 2002; Stryker, 1994). From this perspective, both social movement theories and the institutional entrepreneurship consider an institutional field as being composed of multiple logics that are socially constructed knowledge, value, and rules produced or reproduced by different actors (Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011: 60). Hence, new organizations emerge when an institutional entrepreneur, who seeks institutional changes for exercising its power and influences (Fligstein, 1997), combines multiple institutional logics and uses the elements or contradictions of existing institutions (Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2008; Tracey et al., 2011).

Moreover, local actors who create bottom-up pressure and operates the concept of organizations (Hallett, 2010; Hallett & Ventresca, 2006), and their interpretations on institutions have been largely neglected (Czarniawska & Sevón, 1996; Oliver, 1992). The focus of this research is on 1) how relatively powerless local actors actively engage in an institution-building project of a new organizational form through bottom-up collective action and contention; 2) how this project can be maintained through interactions between actors, although they interpret the meaning of a new organizational form differently according to their accumulated experiences, knowledge, and values; and 3) how the collective action and contention influence changes of social positions of local actors.  

The emergence of Korean social enterprise as a hybrid organization that pursues both economic and social objectives exemplifies a new organization created through negotiations between different social actors who understand social enterprise differently based on their social positions. In Korea, different actors have institutionalized the field of social entrepreneurship by interacting with each other. The top-down actors, the government, members of the National Assembly, and some intermediary organizations subsidized by the government, took the main role in institutionalizing the meaning and concept of social enterprise by establishing the law the Social Enterprise Promotion Act (SEPA) in 2006. Meanwhile, bottom-up actors, NGOs, groups of civil activists and social entrepreneurs who are consistent local actors, also have pushed their own discourses to shape the official discourse of social enterprise. Because both top-down and bottom-up actors have developed the meaning of social enterprise differently based on their knowledge, experiences, values and relationships with other actors, meaning conflicts occurred during the institutional-building project of social enterprise.

In this paper, bottom-up actors are groups of local actors such as a solidarity network of local actors and local community based NGOs supporting local actors interests and activities. As social enterprise is a grass-root and alternative form of business, bottom-up actors are nascent actors who initially invented the concept of Korean social enterprise. Bottom-up actors have developed their own meaning of social enterprise over time by tackling the economic, social, and political problems emerged from capitalistic business activities. Consequently, bottom-up actors were able to involve in the institutional-building and changing projects, as they have a longer experience of operating the concept of social enterprise in the field. For example, the involvement of bottom-up actors influenced the top-down actors to change the institutional meaning of social enterprise and existing institutional setting of social enterprise promotion policies in 2010 and 2012.

To explore how local actors are actively involved in an institution-building project and how their activities influence institutional change, this paper presents multiple data sources including official documents, meeting and public hearing minutes, newspaper articles. Semi- and in-depth interview data with social entrepreneurs and professionals from different groups will be mainly presented which are collected during a six-month fieldwork in Korea in 2014. Using an approach on discourse - discursive strategies which consider social reality being shaped through language and historically situated discursive moves (Alvesson & Karreman, 2000), I will explore how actors take different strategies based on their positions and own interest in order to legitimize the claim they make against the legacy discourse (Maguire & Hardy, 2006).

In doing so, theoretically, I will contribute to explaining the involvement of local actors and their use of strategies in institution-building projects by using the integrated view of the institutional entrepreneurship and social movement theories in neo-institutional perspective. Empirically, this research will contribute to understanding the role of local actors as institutional entrepreneurs who actively influence institutional building or change processes.