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Work integration social enterprises (WISEs) create jobs through business ventures that function as locations for training and employment of disadvantaged workers. A key challenge for US WISEs is that the businesses that are easiest to launch and best suited to absorb large numbers of unskilled workers may be located in the same low wage labor market sectors out of which these interventions are designed to catapult workers. This paper aims to present data on an understudied aspect of WISEs: the labor market niches where they are active, the occupations associated with these labor market positions, and the work conditions offered through their WISE businesses.

Data presented in this paper are from a national WISE database developed by the author that includes 254 businesses associated with 123 WISEs, and a pilot study of 15 WISEs testing an instrument for use in a national survey of US WISEs. Each business associated with the WISEs in the national database was coded for industry, occupation and wage data using categories developed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each WISE business was further coded as preparing its workers for either low or middle skill jobs. These data were analyzed using frequency counts, chi square tests of association and a two‐step cluster analysis. To explore employment conditions inside WISE businesses, the pilot study data were analyzed using a multiple case study analysis approach. Through focused coding techniques, descriptions of the employment conditions associated with the WISE jobs are reviewed.

Analysis at the level of occupation category reveals that about 72 percent of the jobs that WISEs train clients to perform exist in low skill occupations. Chi‐square tests of association between NTEE code (a proxy for target population) and job skill level are not significant suggesting that low skill training is utilized by organizations serving clients facing a range of disadvantage. Cluster analyses indicate that for WISEs targeting disabled populations and for newer organizations targeting the general unemployed populations, low skill job training pervades but for education organization and for older employment organizations, middle skill job training is more prevalent. The pilot data analyses show that the WISEs offer minimum wage or higher wage positions but many without guaranteed hours or a clear pathway out of WISE employment.

These data suggest WISEs in the USA have grown well beyond their earlier, narrower niche working with the disabled to employ a much broader portfolio of client populations, many higher functioning. However, the findings that many WISEs are positioned in the low skill labor market and on some dimensions can mirror the low skill labor market employment conditions suggest that additional aspects of WISE workforce development strategy should be taken into account.

The paper focuses on the labor market niches where WISEs are active, the occupations associated with these labor market positions, and the work conditions offered.

If there is one thing that truly characterizes entrepreneurship and especially social entrepreneurship, it is the “engaged scholarship” at their very heart. That is, teaching, outreach/service and research are connected, often tightly. The purpose of this paper therefore is to discuss the evolution of social entrepreneurship and the lessons learned.

The paper reports on the results of a multi‐country survey dealing with social entrepreneurship.

It is found that a lot of maturing needs to be done in the area of social entrepreneurship work.

This paper provides real value to the literature by showing what is actually done in the teaching of social entrepreneurship.

This paper provides a review and synthesis of past research regarding financial disclosure management by nongovernmental nonprofit organizations and suggests directions for future study. The primary purpose of this review is to summarize the evidence on financial disclosure management to help regulators and other stakeholders understand why, how, and to what extent nonprofits engage in this behavior. The paper begins by defining disclosure management in nonprofit organizations and exploring the motivations for why it might occur. Next is a survey of the nongovernmental nonprofit financial reporting environment: objectives, common practices, and the informational needs of users of nonprofit financial reports. Research exploring the motives, methods, and consequences of disclosure management is summarized. The evidence suggests that nongovernmental nonprofit managers have a variety of incentives to manage reported numbers and that they do in fact alter spending decisions, choose accounting methods, and design cost allocations to achieve certain performance benchmarks. Furthermore, this review sheds light on the consequences of disclosure management and what can or should be done to limit it.

Work integration social enterprises (WISEs) address the chronic unemployment of disadvantaged populations. However, WISEs face challenges, in part, because they embody both social mission and market logics which potentially contradict one another. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the founders of WISEs perceive the relationship between logics and how they manage any resulting tensions, to help determine if they are effective vehicles for alleviating unemployment.

This study used in-depth interviews with social entrepreneurs in nationally recognized WISEs to assess how they perceived and managed logic tensions.

A total of eight out of the ten WISEs emphasized one dominant logic and did not perceive significant internal conflict. Only two cases experienced prolonged and ultimately irreconcilable tensions between their social mission and market goals, when social entrepreneurs were guided by the blended logics of providing training and services to disadvantaged populations within a for-profit legal form.

Future research is required to determine the generalizability of these findings due to small sample size, an exclusive focus on the founder’s perspective and an exclusive focus on WISEs.

Findings contribute to greater understanding of logic tensions in WISEs and the opportunities and limitations that result from aligning dominant logic(s) and organizational form.

This research suggests that the founders of WISEs perceive market and social mission logics as options to be selected, and that WISEs struggle to succeed as organizations with two dominant logics. The market appears as yet unprepared to support singlehandedly organizations with a social mission of work integration.

The purpose of this paper is to perform a critical analysis of the relationship between small- and medium-sized social enterprises (SMSEs) and banks. Based on the conceptual framework for the analysis of SME’s credit availability developed by Berger and Udell (2006), this study aims to contribute to the current debate in two ways: first, outlining the characteristics of the lending technologies currently used by banks and financial institutions to evaluate SMSEs when they apply for credit; and second, discussing, based on the results of the empirical analysis, the coherence of these systems from the social ecosystem perspective and identifying areas for possible improvement.

The paper develops a conceptual framework based on the model proposed by Berger and Udell (2006), which defines the characteristics of lending technologies that banks use to evaluate SMEs, and applies it to the case of SMSEs. To study the interplay of these lending technologies, the empirical analysis is based on a case study of five Italian banks. Data are collected from multiple sources to capture key dimensions of the problems analyzed.

The paper provides empirical insight about the relationship between SMSEs and banks. The Italian case shows that the current lending infrastructure must be revised to support SMSE credit availability, and government policies affect the national financial institution structure. The relationship between SMSEs and Italian banks remains underdeveloped.

The research supports the scaling up of social business.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how social enterprises credit access can be enabled.

This article explores the value of feasibility analysis for the pre-launch nonprofit enterprise. Similarities and differences between for-profit entrepreneurial ventures and nonprofit entrepreneurial ventures are outlined, and then the traditional format of feasibility analysis used by the entrepreneurial for-profit start-up is reviewed and analyzed. This four-stage analysis is then adapted to the needs of the nonprofit new venture enterprise. The benefits of doing a feasibility analysis for the nonprofit enterprise start-up are identified, and guidelines are suggested. An underpopulated research stream is identified and explained in this article for the start-up and early developmental phases of the nonprofit enterprise.

Social enterprises are defined in practice in terms of one operational model generating measurable value in more than one of the economic, social and natural/ecological value denomination categories. However, entrepreneurship theory does not generally or explicitly reflect this definition, which has generated confusion about the social enterprise concept. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to social enterprise theory by delineating novel aspects of this definition and their conceptual ramifications.

The authors review the social enterprise literature with a focus only on the most original contributions and most distinct research questions. The authors do not explicitly review research on traditional for-profit entrepreneurial ventures, not-for-profit/non-governmental organizations or mainstream social entrepreneurial ventures.

The authors offer several implications for social enterprise theory based on practices that are unique to the area but not amenable other areas of entrepreneurship. The contribution is instrumental to establishing social enterprise as a distinct theoretic area.

By focusing on novel aspects of social enterprise not easily explainable by mainstream theoretic traditions, the authors offer an original contribution to the development of social enterprise theory.

The purpose of this paper is to consider how public policy rules and norms embedded in the operation and financing of firms and nonprofits may affect the choice of one or the other for nesting a social enterprise while reducing the risk of failure due to an initial bad choice.

The paper is conceptual and literature based. It identifies and evaluates factors in public policy that are embedded in the rules and norms of operating and financing firms and nonprofits that could materially affect the choice of a nesting place of a social enterprise. It treats the choice as a two-stage process: whether firm or nonprofit and what type of firm or what type of nonprofit.

The choice of a structural form for nesting a social enterprise is dependent upon the public policies embedded in each form that affect the probability of venture success and entrepreneurial remorse.

This paper suggests that public policy norms and rules are deserving variables in the empirical and experimental determinants of choice and success in social enterprises.

This paper may be used for conducting experiments of choice, as a teaching or other pedagogical tool, and for guiding entrepreneurs in making informed choices as to where to nest a social enterprise.

The literature contains several articles on how personality, alertness, opportunity, context, and similar factors affect entrepreneurial behavior. This paper is unique in that it adds public policy to that list by demonstrating that the norms and rules derived from policy (federal and state) are determinative of an informed choice.

Social entrepreneurship represents an unconventional, but increasingly prevalent, activity in developed and emerging economies. Social entrepreneurs devise novel business models that blend business and social missions with the aim of (co-)producing value with two primary stakeholder groups, beneficiaries and customers. Although interactions between social entrepreneurs and their beneficiaries are well-studied, the relationship between social ventures and consumers has received almost no extended attention.

Using a qualitative, partially-inductive approach based on interviews with 40 social entrepreneurs, a study of how social entrepreneurs market their ventures to consumers was conducted.

Findings reveal the ways in which marketing is relevant for social entrepreneurs, the unique challenges and opportunities entrepreneurs face in their interactions with customers, and the tactics entrepreneurs use to understand and educate their consumers.

The study’s findings contribute to work on social entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurship and marketing interface and have practical implications for social entrepreneurs.

This case investigates how a nonprofit can analyze its earned revenue potential. What changes would be required for the organization's current business units to start making a positive financial contribution? What other opportunities to expand its earned‐income efforts exist, and how should they be prioritized? What would it take to implement the new ventures, and how could the nonprofit guard against undertaking initiatives that would subtract more from the organization – in dollars and staff time – than they could possibly add?

A team of consultants from Bridgespan worked with VolunteerMatch, the largest web‐based volunteer‐matching service in the country, to study how to make its earned revenue ventures generate income for the organization and support its mission.

VolunteerMatch's work on earned income helped it to move forward with its financial goals, and also to strengthen its social mission.

VolunteerMatch is a small, talent rich nonprofit with a staff that is comfortable innovating internet‐based products and services. Expanding the study to include a variety of nonprofits would provide a better indication of the viability of an earned income strategy in this sector.

VolunteerMatch now derives 38 percent of its revenue from its earned income activities, decreasing its reliance on contributions.

Few detailed studies exist of the development of earned income operations in nonprofits. This one serves as a guide to best practices for organizations considering this strategy.