Editorial

Citation

Doherty, B. (2011), "Editorial", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 7 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sej.2011.37307baa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Social Enterprise Journal, Volume 7, Issue 2.

I am delighted to introduce to you the second issue of 2011 of the Social Enterprise Journal (SEJ) volume published by Emerald publishers. First, I would like to thank the journal board, the selected reviewers and of course the authors for the papers enclosed.

After securing our first ABS ranking last year from the Association of Business Schools, in the enterprise and small business management category as a 1* journal, we are now happy to announce that the Social Enterprise Journal is also entered onto the Australian Research Council list for the first time. This summer we also intend to apply for inclusion on the Social Sciences Citation Index (also known as Thomson Reuters ISI). It would be very useful if you could send me a reference for the impact and progress of the journal to dohertb@hope.ac.uk so we can compile our case for this. As you may be aware, ISI is the most prominent and influential journal ranking system and acceptance would be a major indicator of the high quality of research published in SEJ. A big factor in the ISI decision-making process is citation count. Therefore, we would ask you to please continue to use and cite the journal's content in your own research. Please also remember to recommend the journal to your colleagues and students.

We are also delighted to announce a number of new additions to strengthen the editorial team, including: Janelle Kerlin (Assistant Professor) at Department of Public Management and Policy at Georgia State University; Suzanne Grant (Lecturer) Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management at the University of Waikato in New Zealand; and Josephine Barraket (Associate Professor) at Queensland University of Technology, Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies.

Janelle Kerlin conducts research on politics and policy related to nonprofit development and operation, often from an international perspective. Her present areas of interest include social enterprise and international nonprofit organisations. She is currently heading up research on trends in nonprofit commercial activity in the USA and comparative research on social enterprise across different countries. Among other projects, she is working collaboratively with the Third Sector Research Centre in the UK to compare trends in nonprofit commercial revenue in the USA, England and Wales.

Dr Suzanne Grant, from the Department of Strategy and Human Resource Management at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, also joins the editorial board. Suzanne is a previous author in the Social Enterprise Journal and is a prolific writer in this area of social enterprise.

Jo Barraket leads the social enterprise research program at the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at Queensland University of Technology. Jo has a PhD in applied sociology and her research interests include emergent forms of social economy in the network society.

Now to the papers for this international issue of SEJ. The first paper is by Professor Colin C. Williams and Dr Sara Nadin (Lecturer in Human Resource Management) both from the Centre for Regional Economic and Enterprise Development (CREED) in the Management School at the University of Sheffield. Their paper is titled “Beyond the commercial versus social entrepreneurship divide: some lessons from English localities”. The article reports from a large empirical study which critically evaluates the extensively used social versus commercial entrepreneurship dualism that depicts these as entirely discrete realms possessing distinct and separate logics. The second paper is by Dr Hao Jiao, who is an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, China. The paper is titled “A conceptual model for social entrepreneurship directed toward social impact on society” and provides a very interesting synthesis of the social entrepreneurship literature.

The third paper, by Professor Simon Denny, Dr Richard Hazenberg, Wray Irwin and Dr Fred Seddon, all at Northampton Business School, University of Northampton, is titled “Social enterprise: evaluation of an enterprise skills programme” focused on worker integration. The evaluation provides a very useful insight into the outcomes of such a programme working with unemployed young adults. The fourth paper, by Trish Ruebottom from York University, Schulich School of Business in Toronto, Canada, is titled “Counting social change: outcome measures for social enterprise” and considers a range of useful and appropriate areas to evaluate social enterprise performance from a number of novel alternative perspectives. The final paper, by Dr Mary O’Shaughnessy, Lecturer in the Department of Food Business and Development, Centre for Co-operative Studies, University College Cork (UCC), Ms Enda Casey and Dr Patrick Enright, is titled “Rural transport in peripheral rural areas: the role of social enterprises in meeting the needs of rural citizens”. This article provides a very interesting case study of the challenges for social enterprise in delivering services in difficult circumstances whilst striving for long-term sustainability.

The Social Enterprise Journal has also just launched a call for papers for a special issue titled “Critiquing dominant discourses for social enterprise” with guest editor Dr Simon Teasdale from the Third Sector Research Centre in Birmingham, UK. The suggested topics include:

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  What evidence is there to show that social enterprise/entrepreneurship activity is increasing?

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  What is the relationship between government spending and social enterprise formation?

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  What is meant by the term “social” when applied as a prefix to “enterprise” or “entrepreneurship”?

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  How have discourses of SE and entrepreneurship been constructed and whose voice is missing?

Bob Doherty

Please contact S.Teasdale@bham.ac.uk for further information. The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2011.

The Social Enterprise Journal has also just attended and presented at the UK-Belgium Social Enterprise Workshop on “Performance and Legitimacy in Social Enterprise” organised by Dr Benjamin Huybrechts at the University of Liege Centre for the Social Economy. Key note papers by Dr Alex Nicholls from Oxford University and Professor Chris Cornforth from the Open University expertly mapped the terrain for this topic. Excellent connections were established and collaborations agreed between scholars present. We will also attend and support this year's 3rd EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise, in partnership with the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Roskilde University, Denmark 4-7 July, and the 2nd International Social Innovation Research Conference, 12-13 September 2011 at London South Bank University. The Social Enterprise Journal will award best paper at both events and also a special, one month free access to the journal for all delegates.