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Governance in South Korean social enterprises: Are there alternative models?

Marcello Bertotti (Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, London, UK)
Younghee Han (Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, London, UK)
Gopalakrishnan Netuveli (Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, London, UK)
Kevin Sheridan (Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, London, UK)
Adrian Renton (Institute for Health and Human Development, University of East London, London, UK)

Social Enterprise Journal

ISSN: 1750-8614

Article publication date: 29 April 2014

1745

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of the present study is to identify the prevalent model of social enterprise governance in South Korea by empirically testing five conceptual models. Theoretical and empirical research on the governance of social enterprises have grown considerably in the past decade, centred primarily on the UK, Europe and the USA. Whilst some articles have discussed the role and growth of social enterprises in Asia, the empirical evidence remains scant, particularly in relation to empirical studies of social enterprise governance in South Korea.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing upon established literature on social enterprise governance, we empirically tested five conceptual models on a sample of 69 South Korean social enterprises collected through an online survey to identify the prevalent model of governance. Such models were found unable to fully explain governance processes observed. Thus, the authors used an innovative statistical technique, latent class analysis, which identifies clusters of associations between key governance variables.

Findings

This exercise revealed two opposite models, centralising and interdependent. The latter represent an interesting shift towards widening forms of participation in governance processes in South Korea.

Research limitations/implications

The sample is small and only limited to some social enterprise types. More research needs to be done on larger samples including the growing South Korean co-operative sector.

Originality/value

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first published data available on the governance of South Korean social enterprises and the analysis used to identify governance models (i.e. latent class analysis) is novel.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the South Korean social enterprises that participated to this research and the Korea Centre Council of Social Enterprise for enabling access to the organisations surveyed.

Citation

Bertotti, M., Han, Y., Netuveli, G., Sheridan, K. and Renton, A. (2014), "Governance in South Korean social enterprises: Are there alternative models?", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 38-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-05-2013-0020

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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