The New Social Entrepreneurship. What Awaits Social Entrepreneurial Ventures?

Citation

Nicholls, A. (2007), "The New Social Entrepreneurship. What Awaits Social Entrepreneurial Ventures?", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 26 No. 7, pp. 729-732. https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150710822348

This interesting book represents a useful addition to the growing literature on social entrepreneurship. Together with five other books on the subject published in 2006, it contributes to the first wave of serious scholarship on social entrepreneurship (in addition to Perrini, see Mair et al., 2006; Austin et al., 2006a, b; Nyssens, 2006; Nicholls, 2006a, b; Mosher‐Williams, 2006). As with the others, this collection reflects the lack of extant academic foundations for the subject by combining new theory development ranging across several disciplines with a substantial body of new case study material. Questions over definitions remain problematic and are not fully resolved. Despite its title, the collection actually focuses largely on social enterprise – a subset of profit earning organisations within social entrepreneurship – rather than on social entrepreneurship itself (see Nicholls and Cho, 2006, for a holistic definition of social entrepreneurship).

The main objective of the book is to explore organisational design and development in social entrepreneurship and it addresses this task well, despite the overall academic quality of contributions being somewhat patchy (both language and structure are stretched to breaking point at times). The collection contains an introduction and fifteen chapters falling roughly into two parts: chapters 1‐6 and 14 consider key theoretical questions in the development of the field; chapters 7‐14 present individual case studies spanning a range of country contexts. There is a bibliography, but it is somewhat dated and flawed by occasional errors (e.g. under “Hockerts, 2006”).

In chapter one, Perrini reviews a range of literature to develop a discussion of the boundaries of social entrepreneurship and its place in extant theory. A conceptual framework for the book's working definition of social entrepreneurship is set out as,

Entailing innovation designed to explicitly improve societal wellbeing, housed within entrepreneurial organizations that initiate this level of change in society

However, in the body of the chapter a more specific context for social entrepreneurship is set out as part of a dynamic discourse between business and society as articulated in the social enterprise model. There is, nevertheless, a useful discussion of the “limited” and “extended” models of social entrepreneurship set out elsewhere in the literature that highlights how problematic and contested definitions can be.

Chapter two explores the process of social enterprise, drawing on previous work by Perrini and Vurro published in Mair et al. (2006). The authors construct a contingency‐based model centred on the “social entrepreneurial opportunity” which blends a variety of research traditions into a multi‐disciplinary whole, including: individual/traits/leadership analysis; environmental/resource‐based/normative theory; organisation/institutional/strategic variables. This creates an interesting, if complex, picture of social entrepreneurship that is well supported with some brief case studies.

In Chapter 3, Perrini and Marino consider the start‐up phase for social entrepreneurs from a practical “business plan” perspective. Specifically, they present an analytic account of the experience of an innovative social enterprise incubator from Israel.

Chapters four and five consider the financing of social enterprise with particular respect to the emerging “venture philanthropy” (VP) or “social venture capital” model. First, Marino gives a brief overview of the financing options for social entrepreneurship before focussing in on an analytic comparison of established venture capital (VC) finance and the new VP approach. This represents a helpful starter's guide to VP, but somewhat overstates its current capital contribution – less than 1 per cent of total grants to social entrepreneurs – as a “basis of a new social entrepreneurship model”. Conversely, the chapter underplays the key importance of managerial control/intervention inherent in the VP model – the combination of capital and management expertise/capacity building is the true mark of VP, as pointed out by John (2006) in his authoritative study. The concluding section focussing on the difficulties of VP exit strategy is useful, however.

In Chapter 5, Vurro gives an international overview of VP activity illustrated by means of mini‐case studies in the text (Acumen Fund, NESsT, Fondazione Oltre etc.). However, the discussion is somewhat confused by an attempt to broaden the definition of VP – uniquely in the literature to date – to include general support and networking organisation such as Ashoka and the Schwab Foundation that do not provide risk or growth capital, but offer individual awards to social entrepreneurs. Such a paradigm stretch needs more careful discussion and justification if it is not to blur the distinctiveness of the VP model.

Chapter 6 presents the most theoretical contribution in the book. Imperatori and Ruta analyse the design strategies driving social enterprises via an analysis of the process within cognitive frames for organisational action. The unit of analysis is the social entrepreneur herself and the authors develop an account of social enterprise that is contingent upon the relational perspectives of its instigator – her own “frame of reference”. This generates a rich and original account of the subject that places the components of organisational development – such as the external environment, task complexity, reward systems, and human resource strategies – within a socio‐normative context concretised in the cognitive structures of the social entrepreneur. However, the theoretical perspective taken here – the individual/cognitive – would benefit from being contextualised in the broader institutional debates concerning structure and agency in organisational thoery (see, for example, DiMaggio and Powell, 1991). As it stands the chapter does not acknowledge that its approach is contested elsewhere.

Chapters seven to 14 provide a valuable case study “reader” that offers new descriptive accounts of social enterprises (see above definition) from South Africa (LocalFeed), Turkey (Cirali), Italy (San Patrignano; Teleserenita), UK (cafedirect), Egypt (SEKEM), USA (Benetech; Watershed). The cases rage across farming, consumer goods, tourism, technology, utilities, and health care, but all demonstrate new models that combine social and financial value creation to support sustainability and growth. The cases feature a wealth of useful information and consultancy‐style analysis that will be of great use to practitioners and praxis‐oriented students. These represent a major contribution to the corpus of such material.

The final chapter brings the overall theme of the collection – the opportunities inherent in the social enterprise model – to its logical conclusion by exploring how corporations can contribute to social value creation in new partnership models with social entrepreneurs. Using Ashoka's “Hybrid Value Chain” model as an analytic tool, Nelson and Jenkins set out a number of examples of such partnerships in action addressing a range of issues such as providing finance for the poor, offering goods and services to low‐income markets (essentially Bottom of the Pyramid logic), and the use of new technologies for social progress. The chapter concludes with five recommendations for strategic action to increase the number of corporate‐social enterprise collaborations.

The book has much to offer both its target markets of students and thoughtful practitioners. However, as with most scholarship on social entrepreneurship to date, the academic limitations of an applied subject are clearly evident in some of the contributions (theory is sometimes poorly articulated and presented monologically; there are no major empirical studies used, etc.). The collection's strengths are its clear organisational/venture focus, the range of its international case study material, and its attempt to bring together some strands of the emerging North American and European scholarship on social enterprise. Less convincing is the largely unjustified focus on one dimension of social entrepreneurship alone – social enterprise – to the exclusion of all the many other interesting hybrid innovations springing up across the citizen's sector and government (see Nicholls and Cho, 2006, for a discussion of the dimensions of social entrepreneurship). Nevertheless, this is a distinctive and welcome addition to the growing scholarly debate around social entrepreneurship.