Guest editorial

Citation

Teasdale, S. (2012), "Guest editorial", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sej.2012.37308baa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Social Enterprise Journal, Volume 8, Issue 2

About the Guest Editor:

Simon TeasdaleResearch Fellow at the ESRC Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Birmingham, and Associate Editor of Social Enterprise Journal. His research explores the marketization of the third sector and its impact on organizational behavior; discourses of social enterprise/entrepreneurship; and social policy with particular relevance to the third sector. He has published in a wide range of journals including Economy and Society , Public Policy and Administration , Public Money and Management and Housing Studies .

As is common in emerging research fields, early social enterprise literature has relied heavily on descriptive case studies, often based on exemplars of “good practice”. This may partly relate to those researching organisations whose values they sympathise with to fail to maintain a critical detachment. But in the longer term an uncritical stance may harm the development of the field of research and the organisations we sympathise with. It might be that we have now reached a critical turn in social enterprise research? At the 2011 International Social Innovation Research Conference (ISIRC) over 20 papers were submitted to the Critical Perspectives Stream. A similar number of papers were submitted for this special issue. Narrowing them down to five was a difficult task as half of the submissions would have been accepted for the regular edition of this journal. Indeed at least two papers submitted to this special issue will appear in the next issue of Social Enterprise Journal.

As Pascal Dey and Chris Steyaert convincingly argue in the opening paper of this special issue, it is important not to confine (critical) social entrepreneurship research to a narrow tradition. They critique some of the key critical research on social enterprise to have emerged over the last decade. Four broad and overlapping approaches are identified: myth busting taken for granted assumptions; critiquing the power effects which shape and control individuals, groups and organisations; normative critique whereby moral judgements of social enterprise are made; and critiques of transgression which identify how practitioners appropriate authoritative discourses for their own ends (or those of the group they represent). Looking forwards, Dey and Steyaert close their paper in calling for a more interventionist critique whereby researchers co-produce knowledge with practitioners.

The second paper in this special issue, by Peter Sunley and Steven Pinch, perhaps most closely approximates to myth busting. Recent policy initiatives in the UK such as Big Society Capital are based upon a premise that there is high demand for loan finance from social enterprises, but that conventional lenders will not lend to social enterprises as they do not understand them. Drawing upon a comparative study of social enterprises in four English cities the authors find little demand for loan finance. Indeed most of their sample would not be able to afford the interest on these loans, and prefer to draw upon charitable and public sector funding. The paper draws upon social bricolage and evolutionary economic theories to help explain this low level of demand for loan funding.

The third paper, by Chris Mason, might be classified as a critique of power effects. The author applies critical discourse analysis to social enterprise and third sector policy documents and speeches produced between 2002 and 2008 in the United Kingdom. Mason shows how the policy language exploits power relations to build an artificial construct of the business-like social enterprise. The policy emphasis on financial traits and differentiation from traditional charitable activity leads to policy measures targeting artificially created needs of social enterprises. This is perhaps particularly relevant given the findings by Sunley and Pinch (this issue).

Our fourth paper, by Karl Palmas, critiques taken for granted Schumpeterian assumptions prevalent in much of the social entrepreneurship literature. Palmas reviews the notion of the “social” provided by Schumpeter as a pre-existing structure or container which is separate from the individuals it contains. So from a Schumpeterian perspective the social entrepreneur creates social change by re-shaping the social containers. But Palmas convincingly argues that a critical understanding of social entrepreneurship might better be served by drawing upon the sociology of Gabriel Tarde, which sees no separation between the individual (social entrepreneur) and the social container. Instead the activities of individuals (read social entrepreneurs) constitute the construction of the societal organisation. Palmas then moves to critique Schumpeterian perspectives on entrepreneurship as applied in social entrepreneurship studies. Here the pursuit of social profit (or goals) is the motivation for social entrepreneurship. But a Tardeian analysis sees entrepreneurship as just one element of a wider dynamism inherent in the increasingly networked economy. So the social entrepreneur is no longer the charismatic hero popularised in the literature, but rather a person who plays final host to wider social innovations with a life of their own.

The final paper of this special issue, by Stefanie Mauksch, explores how social entrepreneurs in Germany make sense of, and legitimise their activities. Drawing upon qualitative research and an interpretive approach to analysis the author shows how on the one hand participants legitimise social enterprise as a novel and rational response to solving social problems. However this reproduction of the dominant discourse is simultaneously challenged by other stories emerging from social entrepreneurs’ embeddedness in the local cultural context and through their own life experiences. Mauksch shows how monolithic characterisations of social entrepreneurs as risk takers ignore the sensitivity and humbleness of those who have had the label attributed to them.

This special issue could not have been produced without the freely given assistance of over 40 anonymous reviewers. It would also not be possible without prior critical work undertaken by academics such as Mike Aiken, Ash Amin, Mike Bull, Tim Curtis, Raymond Dart, Angela Eikenberry, Doug Foster, Jon Griffith, Rory Ridley Duff, Pam Seanor and Duncan Scott. It is hoped this special issue reinforces their message that critical research can remain sympathetic to the hopes and aspirations of social enterprise practitioners while making sense of the environment in which they operate.

Simon TeasdaleGuest Editor