Jo Barraket

Jo Barraket
University of Melbourne | MSD · Melbourne Social Equity Institute

PhD

About

110
Publications
59,822
Reads
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2,617
Citations
Introduction
I am a political sociologist, with particular research interests in social enterprise, social innovation and the relationships between state and civil society in policy formation and implementation. I am the director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute at the University of Melbourne, which contributes to a fairer world through interdisciplinary and community-engaged research.
Additional affiliations
April 2014 - May 2020
Swinburne University of Technology
Position
  • Managing Director
September 2008 - March 2014
Queensland University of Technology
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
Description
  • Leader, social enterprise and entrepreneurship research program.
September 2008 - March 2014
Queensland University of Technology
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
Description
  • Taught graduate studies in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management, focusing on social enterprise and social innovation
Education
March 1995 - August 1999
UNSW Sydney
Field of study
  • Applied sociology

Publications

Publications (110)
Article
Social procurement has gained attention in modern public management; however, considerable differences exist in understanding what social procurement actually is. Divergent definitions of social procurement inhibit effective policy implementation, and can result in imprecision in empirical research. This paper develops a typology of social procurem...
Article
Emerging social procurement imperatives are driving new forms of cross-sector collaboration between private, public and social enterprise sectors in the construction industry. Yet there is little understanding of how and why social enterprises and private construction firms collaborate in meeting new social procurement imperatives and of the instit...
Article
Full-text available
Social procurement is receiving renewed attention in new public governance regimes that seek to increase social value by stimulating markets for social enterprises and other social benefit providers. Intermediaries have traditionally played important roles in social procurement. Yet little has been done to codify these roles. In this paper, the fun...
Article
Entrepreneurial theories of resourcefulness consider the ways in which organisations generate value in resource-constrained environments. While rural communities often face resource constraints, few studies of rural social enterprise have considered the resourcefulness practices of these organisations in detail, or the ways in which these practices...
Article
In the past two decades digital inequality has come to be understood as a complex, evolving and critical issue in Australia, as it has elsewhere. This conceptual shift has generated demand for more complex measurement tools that can capture and combine multiple and graduated indicators of digital inequality. The Australian Digital Inclusion Index (...
Article
Purpose This paper aims to compare the effects of social procurement policies on companies in the Victorian and Scottish construction industries. Scotland and Victoria have led the way in the recent revival of social procurement. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 27 organisations and 28 participants who ha...
Article
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In Australia, 9.4% of young people aged 15–24 are unemployed, more than double the national rate. The national employment services system in Australia has, however, not successfully tackled this issue. While some wraparound programs have been implemented to better address young people's needs, most are designed to find young people any job rather t...
Article
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From qualitative research undertaken in Scotland, the authors analyse procurement policy reforms. Utilizing a public service ecosystem framework, barriers to value creation were found, including overly bureaucratic practices, centrally devised rules, and conflicting organizational aims. The authors develop insights into ways policy design and imple...
Article
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Background Previous research on employee well-being for those who have experienced social and economic disadvantage and those with previous or existing mental health conditions has focused mainly on programmatic interventions. The purpose of this research was to examine how organisational structures and processes (such as policies and culture) infl...
Article
Purpose In recent years, the socio-economic power of local purchasing by both individuals and organisations has become of increasing interest. Despite growing recognition of social enterprises as local development actors, relatively little attention has been given to the motivations and effects of purchasing from social enterprises, particularly in...
Article
Impact evaluation and measurement are highly complex and can pose challenges for both social impact providers and funders. Measuring the impact of social interventions requires the continuous exploration and improvement of evaluation approaches and tools. This article explores the available evidence on meta-evaluation—the “evaluation of evaluations...
Article
Purpose Social procurement is becoming an increasing policy focus for governments around the world as they seek to incentivise new collaborative partnerships with private organisations in industries like construction to meet their social obligations. The limited construction management research in this area shows that the successful implementation...
Article
Purpose This research addresses the lack of project management research into social procurement by exploring the risks and opportunities of social procurement from a cross-sector collaboration perspective. Design/methodology/approach A content analysis of five focus groups conducted with thirty-five stakeholders involved in the implementation of a...
Article
Social procurement is re-emerging as an innovative collaborative policy tool for governments around the world to leverage their construction supply chains to help them address intransigent social problems such as long-term unemployment. Such policies challenge deeply rooted institutional norms and structures in the construction industry and researc...
Chapter
With a growing need to demonstrate social value, accountability and transparency to attract resources, social impact measurement has received increasing attention. It can be viewed as a tool to legitimise what was done for and/or to vulnerable people without their knowledge or involvement. This chapter offers an anthropological critique of current...
Article
Full-text available
There has been a recent proliferation of social procurement policies in Australia that target the construction industry. This is mirrored in many other countries, and the nascent research in this area shows that these policies are being implemented by an emerging group of largely undefined professionals who are often forced to create their own role...
Article
Neoliberalisation of welfare has stimulated growth of hybrid organizational forms – including social enterprises – that bridge welfare objectives and market models of service provision. However, the role of social enterprises in governance networks remains underexplored. Drawing on a comparative case analysis of four work integration social enterpr...
Article
Recent research has drawn upon the social determinants of health (SDH) framework to attempt to systematize the relationship between social enterprise and health. In this article, we adopt a realist evaluation approach to conceptualize social enterprises, and work integration social enterprises in particular, as 'complex interventions' that necessar...
Article
Purpose Social procurement policies are an emerging policy instrument being used by governments around the world to leverage infrastructure and construction spending to address intractable social problems in the communities they represent. The relational nature of social procurement policies requires construction firms to develop new collaborative...
Article
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Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE) offer supported work environments for people experiencing disadvantage, including people with disability. This paper reflects on a research project that is mapping the ways in which social enterprises in regional Australian cities produce wellbeing for their employees. Through supported employment programs...
Article
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Social enterprises are promoted as a method of welfare reform, to transition people out of disadvantage by addressing poverty, unfulfilled capabilities and social exclusion. This study explores how three Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) in Australia help to realise wellbeing for their employees by mapping their micro-geographical experie...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This case study report examines the role of social enterprise, Green Connect, in producing health equity and wellbeing outcomes for young people and their communities. Forming part of a wider comparative case study project, the research focuses particularly on the organisational context and features of Green Connect that produce these outcomes, wit...
Article
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Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs) are a response to reconfiguring social support for disadvantaged people. Here, theory and methodology from social geography were applied, to consider capability realized in/by three Australian regional city WISEs. Data were gathered using observation and interviews with supervisors and employees. Coding i...
Article
This paper reports on changes in philanthropy over the decade between Giving Australia 2005 and 2016. The analysis is based on data drawn from across the Giving Australia 2005 and 2016 projects. The findings point to elements of stability in the fundamental emphasis on the desire for agency and efficacy by philanthropic individuals and philanthropi...
Technical Report
This evidence review, drawing on secondary analysis of existing evidence from academic and grey literature, addresses whether and how employment redresses disadvantage; the current costs and future implications of unemployment and underemployment in the Australian context; and the potential and impacts of employment-focused social enterprises on em...
Technical Report
Westpac Foundation commissioned CSI Swinburne to review the available research evidence on whether and how employment redresses disadvantage, and the impacts of employment-focused social enterprise on employment creation and reducing disadvantage. A secondary goal was to identify where there are significant gaps in evidence that may be limiting pol...
Article
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Researchers are turning greater attention to the role of social enterprise in addressing health inequities. However, few studies explicate the organizational features through which social enterprise may improve health equities. This article reports on a scoping study that finds researchers are focusing on understanding the perspectives of target be...
Article
Purpose The social economy – including not-for-profits, cooperatives, mutual organisations and social enterprises – is playing a stronger role than ever in the delivery of public policy. Yet, these organisations are often anecdotally viewed as relatively inefficient providers. The purpose of this paper is to compare the profitability and labour pr...
Technical Report
Full-text available
With a growing range of education, information, government, and community services moving online, internet access is increasingly regarded as an essential service. The benefits of the digital economy cannot be shared equally when some members of the community are still facing real barriers to online participation. Digital inclusion is based on the...
Article
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Purpose: This paper contributes to emerging discourse about social movements in social marketing by examining how tensions, issues and challenges may arise in areas of social change that have attracted social movements and the ways actors can come together to drive inclusive social change agendas. Design/methodology/approach: Through the lens o...
Article
How do social enterprises acquire and retain employees in resource-poor environments? This paper presents findings from a study examining human resource management (HRM) practices in transitional economy social enterprises, where research on HRM remains under explored. Drawing on social exchange theory and employing a multiple-case study design, we...
Article
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Social enterprises employ twice the rates of Australians with disability and female managers as mainstream small businesses. Our study of Victorian social enterprises also found 12% of jobs are held by previously long-term unemployed people (those who have been out of work for more than 12 consecutive months), and 2% by Indigenous Australians. Th...
Article
In recent years, public and policy interest in social enterprise and its impacts has grown. Yet, little is known about the characteristics and impacts of social enterprise. In February 2017, the Victorian Government launched its first Social Enterprise Strategy. The Strategy seeks to improve and expand on government support for Victorian social ent...
Article
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Purpose This paper aims to document the nature of social enterprise models in Australia, their evolution and institutional drivers. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on secondary analysis of source materials and the existing literature on social enterprise in Australia. Analysis was verified through consultation with key actors in the...
Conference Paper
This paper addresses the question of how and why social enterprises and private for profit firms collaborate to co-create social value in the construction industry and what institutional and organisational factors shape these practices. It does this using a documentary analysis and semi structured interviews with senior leaders of three constructio...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/437400 This project was funded by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), and delivered by the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) Swinburne in partnership with Community Recycling Network Australia (CRNA) and Resource Recovery Australia. The project aims were: to improve understanding of how the env...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This report builds on the findings from Snapshot Report 4: How Do Western Australia’s Social Enterprises Meet Their Financial Challenges (April 2016). Based on a second wave of interviews with our social enterprise case studies, we found some important themes emerging in the past year related to changes in the operating environment for social enter...
Article
Social impact research fuels normative expectations that policy processes will respond favourably to evidence-based accountability; for example in the case of community broadcasting, policy support will continue to be forthcoming where social benefits are demonstrated. A possible strategic response to public policy failures is for community broadca...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The Australian Digital Inclusion Index has been created to measure the level of digital inclusion across the Australian population, and to monitor this level over time. This is the second annual report, presenting findings on the geography and demography of digital inclusion from 2014-2017.
Article
The value of business planning to new business ventures and small firms has been the subject of debate among entrepreneurship researchers. In this paper, we examine business planning prac- tices as a function of legitimacy formation among Australian social enterprises, drawing on a mixed-methods study. We find that business planning practices are d...
Technical Report
Full-text available
In setting out the first findings of the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII), this report provides our most comprehensive picture yet of Australians' online participation. The ADII has been created to measure the level of digital inclusion across the Australian population, and to monitor this level over time. Based on data from Roy Morgan Res...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose This paper explores the wellbeing impacts of social enterprise, beyond a social enterprise per se, in everyday community life. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory case study was used. The study’s underpinning theory is from relational geography, including Spaces of Wellbeing Theory and therapeutic assemblage. These theories underpin...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This is the fourth publication from the Bankwest Foundation Social Impact Series and includes analysis of the first wave of data collection from the Social Enterprise Financial Resilience project. Significant interest in this project from social enterprises arose following the public presentation and delivery of Snapshot Report 2 (Resourcing Social...
Technical Report
Available online at: http://www.csi.edu.au/media/uploads/Social_Impact_Series_4_Book_v4_zvIB0GQ.pdf
Article
Cross-sectoral partnerships are increasingly common in Australian human service delivery. Yet research has not often focused on partnerships where private actors broker an arrangement to address complex community needs. Using a combination of interviews, focus groups, and social network analysis (SNA), this paper investigates the network qualities...
Book
In recent years, the search for innovative, locally relevant and engaging public service has become the new philosophers’ stone. Social procurement represents one approach to maximising public spending and social value through the purchase of goods and services. It has gained increasing attention in recent years as a way that governments and corpor...
Technical Report
This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the Social Enterprise Development and Investment Funds (SEDIF) program of the Australian Government Department of Employment, over the period August 2011-June 2016. SEDIF was announced in 2010 and established in 2011, with the objectives of: 1. Providing a catalyst for market development 2. Tes...
Article
Institutional and cultural contexts shape social entrepreneurship differently. This paper explores the roles of culture, socioeconomic development, and governance institutions on the prevalence of social entrepreneurship. The empirical results are based on Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data, including 49 countries across the globe. The results in...
Article
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an Australian case study and to explore how social enterprises may be conceptualised as spaces of well-being, that is the ways in which social enterprises, not explicitly delivering health services, may be producing health and well-being benefits for those who come into contact with them. Design/me...
Article
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The role of social innovations in transforming the lives of individuals and communities has been a source of popular attention in recent years. This article systematically reviews the available evidence of the relationship between social innovation and its promotion of health equity. Guided by Fair Foundations: The VicHealth framework for health eq...
Article
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the prior work on social enterprise (SE) model comparisons by exposing the difficulties in producing universally comparative SE models. Furthermore, this paper seeks to trace different dominant stories of SE based on a combined historical and discursive analysis of Australian institutions shap...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Available online at http://www.csi.edu.au/media/uploads/Social_Impact_Series_Issue_2_Resourcing_Social_Enterprises_Approaches_and_Challenges.pdf
Technical Report
Report downloadable at www.socialtraders.com.au/FASES This report details the findings of a series of 13 workshops conducted with 75 participants as part of the Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector 2015 project. The purpose of the research was to explore participants’ experiences of the barriers and opportunities available to Australian s...
Article
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The social economy as a regional development actor is gaining greater attention given its purported ability to address social and environmental problems. This growth in interest is occurring within a global environment that is calling for a more holistic understanding of development compared to traditionally economic-centric conceptions. While regi...
Article
In recent years, the imperative to communicate organisational impacts to a variety of stakeholders has gained increasing importance within all sectors. Despite growing external demands for evaluation and social impact measurement, there has been limited critically informed analysis about the presumed importance of these activities to organisational...
Article
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the growing emphasis on quantifiable performance measures such as social return on investment (SROI) in third sector organisations – specifically, social enterprise – through a legitimacy theory lens. It then examines what social enterprises value (i.e. consider important) in terms of performance eva...
Article
Micro and small businesses contribute the majority of business activity in the most developed economies. They are typically embedded in local communities and therefore well placed to influence community wellbeing. While there has been considerable theoretical and empirical analysis of corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility (CSR),...
Article
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Social capital is considered fundamental to microfinance programmes adopting a self-help group (SHG) model and in facilitating community development. This report examines the collective benefits of social capital facilitated through SHGs within the broader (local) community. Findings highlight that social capital initially developed within SHGs res...
Article
Social enterprises are hybrid organizational forms that combine characteristics of for-profit businesses and community sector organizations. This article explores how rural communities may use social enterprises to progress local development agendas across both economic and social domains. Drawing on qualitative case studies of three social enterpr...
Chapter
‘Social innovation’ is a construct increasingly used to explain the practices, processes and actors through which sustained positive transformation occurs in the network society (Mulgan, G., Tucker, S., Ali, R., Sander, B. (2007). Social innovation: What it is, why it matters and how can it be accelerated. Oxford: Skoll Centre for Social Entreprene...
Article
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The relationship between participation in civic and political activities and membership of voluntary associations is now well established. What is less clear is the relative impacts of how much time people spend on group activities (associational intensity), and the number and type of groups that individuals are involved with (associational scope)....
Article
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Ideas of ‘how we learn’ in formal academic settings have changed markedly in recent decades. The primary position that universities once held on shaping what constitutes learning has come into question from a range of experience‐led and situated learning models. Drawing on findings from a study conducted across three Australian universities, the ar...
Article
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In recent years, the concepts of social inclusion and exclusion have become part of the repertoire of third way policy discourses that seek to respond to complex socio-economic problems through processes of 'joined up' and 'integrated' governance. As part of this approach, we are witnessing an increased focus on partnerships and networks between go...
Article
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In the last ten years, there has been growing interest in social enterprise by governments, the not-for-profit sector and philanthropy in Australia The drivers of this interest have been variously understood to be: increasing demand for innovative responses to social and environmental problems; pressure on not-for-profit organisations to diversify...
Article
Increasingly the health and welfare needs of individuals and communities are being met by third sector, or not-for-profit, organizations. Since the 1980s third sector organizations have been subject to significant, sector-wide changes, such as the development of contractual funding and an increasing need to collaborate with governments and other se...
Conference Paper
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As multi-stakeholder entities that explicitly inhabit both social and economic domains, social enterprises pose new challenges and possibilities for local governance. In this paper, we draw on new institutional theory to examine the ways in which locally-focused social enterprises disrupt path dependencies and rules in use within local government....
Article
This article explores the role of sociology in understanding the phenomenon of online dating. Based on an examination of our qualitative study of 23 online daters, combined with the findings of the small number of other empirical studies available, we argue that further sociological consideration of the online dating phenomenon is required to: illu...
Article
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This article examines the growing phenomenon of online dating and intimacy in the 21st century. The exponential rise of communications technologies, which is both reflective and constitutive of an increasingly networked and globalized society, has the potential to significantly influence the nature of intimacy in everyday life. Yet, to date, there...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Report available at https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/media-and-resources/publications/awakenings-festival-and-braybrooks-big-day-out
Article
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This article presents a reflective case study analysis of an attempt to enhance student learning through the introduction of student-centred teaching methods in a masters-level social research methods subject. The introduction of a range of specific techniques, including case study teaching, problem based learning, groupwork, role-play and simulati...
Article
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This article reports on a preliminary analysis of Australian third sector, or non-profit, organisations’ attempts to mobilise citizen engagement using online technologies. Recent debates about the nature and importance of citizen engagement, and the impacts of online technologies on citizen engagement, are reviewed in order to identify the signific...
Chapter
Rapid advances in information and communications technology (ICT) - particularly the development of online technologies -have transformed the nature of economic, social and cultural relations across the globe. In the context of higher education in post-industrial societies, technological change has had a significant impact on university operating e...