Social Enterprise – A New Phenomenon in the Field of Economic and Social Welfare?

By Leandro Sepúlveda. 2015

112 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Drawing upon insights from historical institutionalism, this article critically examines the origins of social enterprise and its emergence into the mainstream policy arena. It begins by relating the social enterprise idea to major non-state/non-private institutional traditions, including the European social economy, US non-profits and the UK charitable sector, and places it within the specific field of economic and social welfare. In so doing, the article contests the idea that social enterprise is a new phenomenon in the social welfare field and proposes instead that the supposed ‘novelty’ of social enterprise as an organizational form and a subject of public policy lies primarily in the nature of the socio-political and economic context of the 1980s–1990s, during which time it became ‘en vogue’. The process of institutionalization of social enterprise and its ascension into the mainstream policy arena is examined in more detail in the case of England during the time New Labour was in office and beyond, and lessons are drawn from this experience concerning both the role that social enterprise plays or is expected to play as a vehicle to address economic and social needs, and how this is intertwined with both a dominant neo-liberal discourse, as well as alternative perspectives that emphasize more equalitarian and sustainable development paths. The article concludes with some reflections in relation to the apparent consensus that seems to exist around social enterprise as a legitimate subject of public policy and the resulting social enterprization of public services which is currently taking place in England.

Subfields: Finance, Sociology and Political Science, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/67a1e28be6ef4c2d25648894b79b93a15d63fa63

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Finance

1. Geraldine Brennan
2. Fenna Blomsma
3. Leandro Sepúlveda
4. Fergus Lyon

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Geraldine Brennan
2. Fenna Blomsma
3. Leandro Sepúlveda
4. Thomas Molony

In Strategy and Management

1. Fenna Blomsma
2. Geraldine Brennan
3. Leandro Sepúlveda
4. Fergus Lyon
5. Thomas Molony

Citations in the corpus

• The Emergence of Circular Economy: A New Framing Around Prolonging Resource Productivity (2017, result): “Although greater detail with regard to these aspects may yield additional insights, we have neverthe- less shown that, similar to other concepts (Sepulveda 2015), the CE’s core ideas had emerged before clarity was generated regarding the encompassing label.”
• Public service innovation and multiple institutional logics: The case of hybrid social enterprise providers of health and wellbeing (2017, background): “The concept of co-production/co-creation which is particularly associated with SE and social innovation emphasises the empowerment of consumers/service users and how this can produce better outcomes (Bovaird, 2007; Pestoff, 2009; Simmons, 2008; Simmons et al., 2012).”