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This study aims to assess the alignment of South Korea’s government-certified social enterprises (GCSEs) with prevailing social enterprise (SE) models, notably the entrepreneurial nonprofit, social cooperative and social business models delineated in the “Emergence of Social Enterprises in Europe” (Defourny and Nyssens, 2012, 2017a, 2017b) and the “principle of interest” frameworks (Defourny et al., 2021). Thereby, it seeks to situate these enterprises within recognized frameworks and elucidate their hybrid identities.

Analyzing panel data from 2016 to 2020 for 259 GCSEs, this study uses tslearn for k-means clustering with dynamic time warping to assess their developmental trajectories and alignment with established SE models, which echoes the approach of Defourny et al. (2021). We probe the “fluid” identities of semi-public sector SEs, integrating Gordon’s (2013) notion that they tend to blend various SE traditions as opposed to existing in isolation.

Results indicate that GCSEs do align with prevalent SE frameworks. Furthermore, they represent a spectrum of SE models, suggesting the versatility of the public sector in fostering diverse types of SEs.

The concept of a semi-public sector SE model has been relatively uncharted, even though it holds significance for research on SE typologies and public sector entrepreneurship literature. This study bridges this gap by presenting empirical evidence of semi-public SEs and delineating the potential paths these enterprises might take as they amalgamate various SE traditions.

This paper analyzes how a national social enterprise policy encourages the social missions of social enterprises and uncovers the relationships between social enterprise governance and labor equity, an area that has been rarely studied in nonprofit governance studies.

The study analyzes the effects of four legal requirements for work-integrated social enterprises (WISEs) codified by the Social Enterprises Promotion Act (SEPA, 2007) in South Korea. Then, it relies on panel regression analysis (2020–2022) to examine how the compositions of the governance of WISEs are related to their hiring and wage equity.

The institutional arrangements required by SEPA have resulted in positive social impacts for most WISEs. However, the results of regression models show that individual participant groups in the WISE governance achieved mixed results depending on the labor issue.

Generally, this research explores the concept of diversity and its utility in nonprofit governance, with a particular focus on targeted diversity policies, demonstrating that governance arrangements influence the success of these policies.

The findings bring new insights for policymakers about “altruistic economic entities.” For practitioners in social enterprises, the results of the regression models underscore the importance of understanding the participant composition of decision-making meetings.

This study sheds light on labor equity, which government-certified social enterprises should achieve from the perspective of nonprofit governance.

This paper aims to provide a starting point to discuss how social enterprises can drive systemic change in terms of social impact through operations and supply chain management.

This paper reviews existing literature and the four papers in this special issue and develops a conceptual framework of how social enterprises and their supply chains create social impact and further enable systematic change.

Our paper finds that social impact and systemic change can be shaped by social enterprises at three different levels of analysis (organization, supply chain and context) and through three enablers (cognitive shift, stakeholder collaboration and scalability). Such dimensions are used to position current literature and to highlight new research directions.

This paper proposes a novel understanding of operations and supply chain management in social enterprises intended as catalysts for systemic change. Based on this premise we distinguish different practices and stakeholders to be considered when studying social impact at different levels. The conceptual framework introduced in the paper provides a new pathway for future research and debate by scholars engaged at the intersection of social impact, sustainable operations and supply chain management.

The social venture (SV) is an increasingly popular form of organization to pursue social goals using a commercial approach. Although marketing plays an important role in SV research and a key driver of the performance of SVs, how and the extent to which market conditions play a role remains understudied. This study examines if market turbulence can moderate marketing capabilities and performance relationships.

The authors developed several hypotheses rooted in the marketing literature and tested them using data collected from a sample of 109 SVs from East Asia (i.e. Hong Kong and Taiwan). Using multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling, the authors analyzed the marketing capabilities and financial and social performance relationships and the positive moderating role of market turbulence.

The results suggested that market turbulence is a positive moderator which influences the effect of the marketing capabilities–financial performance relationship, but not the marketing capabilities and social performance relationship.

This paper attempts to interrogate the SV's marketing capabilities–performance relationship in the East Asian context and how market turbulence may enhance or weaken the relationship. This is one of the earliest papers in this research area. The key findings from this research offer valuable theoretical contribution to the study of SV performance.

The purpose of this empirical study is to enable a better understanding of the construct sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) and thereby promote sustainable entrepreneurship. It aims to examine the significance of work values (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards and job security) as antecedents of SEI and to test the mediating effect of three constructs derived from the theory of planned behaviour – attitude towards sustainability, perceived entrepreneurial desirability and perceived entrepreneurial feasibility on the relationships between work values and SEI.

Confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis were performed using analysis of moment structures v27 and statistical package for social science v28 on data obtained from the survey of young individuals of India. The respondents were students enrolled in higher education programmes.

All the identified antecedents (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, job security and theory of planned behaviour constructs) were found to be statistically significant. The partial mediating effect of the theory of planned behaviour constructs was also reported.

This empirical work leads to the theoretical advancement of the emerging construct, SEI, by presenting evidence of the significant individual-level antecedents of the construct. The results lead to recommendations for policymakers and educators to design strategies to strengthen SEI, thereby expanding the adoption of sustainable entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this study is to show how strategic planning can play multiple roles in the context of conflict between two controlling shareholders in a new joint venture.

This study conducted a five-year qualitative case study of a large financial services joint venture co-owned by a Latin American state bank and a European financial company.

The authors found that over time, budgeting and strategic planning had intertwining use to guide strategic decisions, but unexpectedly, strategic planning eventually developed three distinct roles beyond the merely functional, as it also contributed to complex symbolic and political functions.

This study provides guidance on considering different roles taken by strategic planning, as a utilitarian practice, as a symbolic narrative and as a conflict-mediating routine.

Studies on the work integration of persons with disabilities (PwD) and the role of social dialogue therein are scarce. The study examines how the different systems of workers’ representation and industrial relations in Slovakia and Norway facilitate PwD work integration. Taking a social ecosystem perspective, we acknowledge the role of various stakeholders and their interactions in supporting PwD work integration. The paper’s conceptual contribution lies in including social dialogue actors in this ecosystem.

Evidence was collected via desk research, 35 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 51 respondents and stakeholder workshops in 2019–2020.

The findings from Norway confirm the expected coordination of unions and employers in PwD work integration. Evidence from Slovakia shows that in decentralised industrial relations systems, institutional constraints beyond the workplace determine employers’ and worker representatives’ approaches in PwD integration. Most policy-level outcomes are contested, as integration occurs predominantly via sheltered workplaces without interest representation.

This paper identifies the primary sources of variation in the work integration of PwD. It also highlights opportunities for social partners across both situations to exercise agency and engagement to improve PwD work integration.

By integrating two streams of literature – social policy and welfare state and industrial relations – this paper examines PwD work integration from a social ecosystem perspective. Empirically, it offers novel qualitative comparative evidence on trade unions’ and employers’ roles in Slovakia and Norway.

The purpose of this article is to show (1) how social innovations are created through co-production in social enterprises in Finland and (2) how enabling ecosystems for the creation of social innovations can be enhanced by the government.

This study is a descriptive case study. The data comprises focus group interviews that were conducted during a research project in Finland in 2022. The interviewees represented different social enterprises, other non-profit organisations and national funding institutions.

Social enterprises create social innovations in Finland through co-production, where service innovation processes, activism and networking are central. Also, to build an enabling ecosystem, government must base the system upon certain elements: enabling characteristics of the stakeholders, co-production methods and tools and initiatives by the government.

The authors address an important challenge that social enterprises struggle with: The position of social enterprises in Finland is weak and entrepreneurs experience prejudice from both the direction of “traditional” businesses and the government which often does not recognise social enterprise as a potential partner for public service delivery. Nonetheless, social enterprises create public value by contributing to the co-production of public services. They work in interorganisational networks by nature and can succeed where the traditional public organisations and private businesses fail.

This study explores how problem-based learning (PBL) programs can address Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via the higher education (HE) curriculum, teaching materials and relevant assessments, supporting learning at scale for HE institutions.

Employing SDGs and their indicators as the coding framework, our two-phase study evaluates the curriculum and teaching materials of seven PBL programs at a leading higher education institution (HEI). The first phase involved a content analysis to assess the degree of sustainability integration in 156 relevant courses. The second phase applied a semi-automated mapping protocol to analyze learning and teaching materials in 120 relevant courses.

The school aligns with 17 SDGs (100%), covering 94 indicators (55.62%). On average, each program within the school addresses over ten of these goals and incorporates more than 24 associated indicators. However, the study reveals an imbalance in the incorporation of SDGs, with some goals not yet deeply and comprehensively embedded in the curriculum. While there is a substantial focus on sustainability theories, the practical implications of SDGs in emerging countries, particularly through case studies and assessments, require significant enhancement.

Mapping SDGs allows HEIs to identify strengths and gaps in SDG integration, thereby improving the PBL approach to enhance student work readiness in sustainability-focused careers.

Through the lens of transformative learning theory, this study provides evidence of SDG integration into PBL curricula. It highlights a mapping methodology that enables HEIs to evaluate their sustainability readiness in curriculum, teaching materials and relevant assessments.