Third edition editorial 2011

Citation

Doherty, B. (2011), "Third edition editorial 2011", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 7 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sej.2011.37307caa.001

Third edition editorial 2011

Third edition editorial 2011

Article Type: Editorial From: Social Enterprise Journal, Volume 7, Issue 3.

I am delighted to introduce to you the Social Enterprise Journal’s (SEJ) third edition of 2011 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.

Now to the papers for this issue of SEJ. The first paper is an excellent paper by Maria Granados, Vlatka Hlupic, Elayne Coakes and Souad Mohamed, all from Westminster Business School, University of Westminster, London. Their paper is titled “Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship Literature: A bibliometric analysis from 1991 to 2010”. This study presents a detailed analysis of the social enterprise and social entrepreneurship research that has been published in international journals from 1991 to 2010. A key output of this study is the identification of a significant increase in the scholarly investigation of these subjects in recent years, together with greater collaboration and international research. This confirms that both social enterprise and social entrepreneurship have become important subjects of study in the academic landscape, where both researchers and practitioners around the world are starting to document their experiences and findings. This paper provides an interesting insight into both consensus and different schools of thought surrounding the literature and makes recommendations for future research directions.

The second paper by Professor John Thompson (the Business School, University of Huddersfield, UK) titled; “Reflections on Social Enterprise and the Big Society” is a thought piece aiming to make sense for Social Enterprise of the new UK Coalition Governments notion of the Big Society. The paper identifies a number of challenges for social enterprise in this changing political landscape. We hope this paper will stimulate further submissions to the special issue (outlined below) on critiquing dominant discourses for social enterprise. The third paper by Ciaran Connolly (Senior lecturer-Queens University Management School) and Martin Kelly (Teaching fellow at Queens University Management School) is titled “Understanding Accountability in Social Enterprise Organisations: A Framework”. This paper works on a gap in the literature regarding accountability in social enterprises and proposes a framework to enable social enterprises to effectively account to their stakeholders. This paper covers the complex issues surrounding accounting and accountability in social enterprises at a time when more will be expected from this organisational type.

The fourth paper is co-authored by both Michelle Lane (Assistant Professor in Management at Humboldt State University in the USA) and Maureen Casile (Assistant Professor of Management at Suny Institute of Technology, USA). Their paper is titled “Angels on the Head of a Pin: The SAC Framework for Performance Measurement in Social Entrepreneurship Ventures” and proposes a performance measurement framework for social enterprise which measures firm survival, social action and social change. As demonstrated by the number of papers presented on performance measurement at the recent EMES conference there is much interest in this area. Therefore we hope this paper will stimulate other researchers in this area to join the debate in this journal. There is no doubt it is a contested space at a time when performance measurement is of growing importance due to increased stakeholder demands on social enterprises.

The final paper is co-authored by Li Zhao (Researcher at the Co-operative Entrepreneurship and Social Economy, HIVA-Research Institute for Work and Society) and Dr Caroline Gijselinckx (Research Manager Civil Society and Social Economy & Coordinator Cera Centre for Cooperative Entrepreneurship, HIVA-Research Institute for Work and Society) both at the Catholic University of Leuven titled; “Multi-Stakeholder Co-operatives in China: A Resource Mix Structure Approach”. The article further develops our understanding of Social Enterprise in China, which according to Yu (2011) is at a very early stage. This co-authored paper explains “how new Chinese rural co-operatives are caught in a co-operative trilemma”, finding themselves “at the crossroads of market, public policy and civil society” and involved in an emerging public – private “welfare partnership”. This paper further illustrates the complexity of social enterprise development in China at a time when the role of the socialist state as a welfare provider has reduced significantly, the market economy has expanded rapidly and civil society organisations have tried to occupy this new space by expanding n various directions.

The SEJ has also just launched a call 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?

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

SEJ also supported and attended the recent 3rd EMES International Conference on Social Enterprise titled; “Social Innovation Through Social Entrepreneurship in Civil society” at the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Roskilde University, Denmark 4-7 July. The significant growth in conference delegate numbers and the increasing number of countries represented demonstrates the rapidly growing interest in the field of social enterprise. The SEJ also supported and track chaired at the 3rd International Social Innovation Research Conference 12-13 September 2011 at London South Bank University. We look forward to article submissions from both these conferences.

Reference

Yu, X. (2011), “Social enterprise in China: driving forces, development patterns and legal framework”, Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 9-32

Bob Doherty