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Walking the talk? An exploratory study on the contributions of municipalities to the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Netherlands
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how municipalities contribute to the ecosystem for social entrepreneurs, focusing on the four largest municipalities in the Netherlands, also known as the G4 municipalities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague). Building on the ecosystem model of Spigel (2017), the findings focus on the cultural, social and material contributions of the municipalities to the ecosystem and how these contributions are perceived by the founders of social enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
Focusing only on G4 municipalities, 39 semi structured interviews were carried, 15 of which were conducted with civil servants from G4 municipalities and the rest with social enterprises operating in G4 municipalities.
Findings
The results indicate that the G4 municipalities mainly contribute by helping build a positive image of social entrepreneurship and by facilitating the network of social entrepreneurs. However, municipalities often fail to substantiate their commitment by way of material resources such as financial inducements, resource provision or policies.
Originality/value
In the analysis, Spigel’s ecosystem model is adopted and by adopting this lens, the authors believe that the contribution of this exploratory study lies in analysing the relation of municipalities with social enterprises in a more comprehensive way. A consideration of the cultural, social and material aspects of municipality support, along with the discrepancies between these kinds of support, allows a critical analysis of the role municipalities play in social entrepreneurship in the Netherlands.
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Social Entrepreneurs address ‘wicked’ societal problems and achieve social impact using innovative practices. This study contributes to the analysis of the role of government in the ecosystem of Dutch social entrepreneurs by looking at the support initiatives that the Amsterdam municipality offers. Our paper reveals how municipal officials and social entrepreneurs position themselves in this ecosystem and how they make sense of their collaboration. We think that these issues are important to dwell on to be able see the limits of collaborative governance approaches in the Dutch Social Entrepreneurship eco-system. The results of qualitative interviews conducted with municipality officials, social entrepreneurs and members of network organizations show that the ties between the municipality of Amsterdam and social entrepreneurs are not strong enough to overcome the institutional barriers and that the relationship between them is disrupted by the different logics used. Social entrepreneurs operate from both a social as well as a commercial logic. Social entrepreneurs see themselves as running noble social enterprises that put impact first, but the municipality values a commercial logic when granting subsidies. This means that the social enterprises do not always fit within the frameworks offered by the municipality because their commercial logic is seen as less legitimate when it comes to support. The results of this study confirm that in the governance of wicked problems, there is an ongoing actor positioning process where, in this case, social enterprises and municipalities, hold on to their actor-based understanding of the nature of issues and collaboration.
In this chapter we focus upon the idea that the process of social entrepreneurship needs a supportive environment in order to flourish. Drawing upon biological metaphors and evolutionary theory, we show how different environmental conditions – such as historical, political, legal and economic factors – all combine to influence various types of social enterprise that can emerge in different contexts. Reflecting on extant research on social enterprise ‘ecosystems’, we draw upon results of a large-scale European project to present a typology of different ecosystems identified thus far and suggest ways in which research on this topic could be developed further in the future.
This article focuses on the hybridity of social enterprises, organizations that strive to create social and economic value simultaneously. It analyses how social entrepreneurs and local government deal with the hybridity resulting from mixing these two opposing values and what it means for social enterprises’ contributions to processes of social innovation, e.g. new ways of dealing with societal problems using innovative constellation of organizations and other actors. The article discusses the results of a study of social enterprises in and around the cities of Rotterdam, The Hague and Dordrecht in the Netherlands and by doing so looks at an urban subset of social enterprises engaged in social innovation. In the underlying study, document analysis, interviews and a survey
were used to identify what drives social entrepreneurs to engage in processes of social innovation, how they generate results and how they deal with the tensions due to hybridity. The article discuss-
es the positive and negative effects of hybridity affecting social enterprises and describes avenues for further research on the subject.
In its most abstract sense, an ecosystem is a biotic community, encompassing its physical environment, and all the interactions possible in the complex of living and nonliving components. Economics has always been about systems that explain differential output and outcomes. However, economics has generally ignored the role of entrepreneurship in economic systems, just as entrepreneurship studies have largely overlooked the role of systems in explaining the prevalence and performance of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach has the promise to correct these shortcomings. Its two dominant lineages are the regional development literature and the strategy literature. Both lineages share common roots in ecological systems thinking, providing fresh insights into the interdependence of actors in a particular community to create new value. But studies of both regional development and strategic management have largely ignored the role of entrepreneurs in new value creation. In this paper, we will outline contributions to the entrepreneurial ecosystem approach and conclude with a promising new line of research to our understanding of the emergence, growth, and context of start-ups that have achieved great impact by developing new platforms.
The formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems is recognized as an activity that can produce economic development and community revitalization. Social entrepreneurship is also an activity that is receiving growing attention because of its potential for addressing social and economic problems. However, while scholars have focused on how the participants in entrepreneurial ecosystems, such as investors and support organizations, influence ecosystem functioning, it is not clear what role social entrepreneurs can play in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Nor is it known how the entrepreneurial ecosystems in which social entrepreneurs are located can influence the founding and operation of their ventures. In this conceptual paper, theory is proposed to explain the interrelationship between entrepreneurial ecosystems and social entrepreneurship. It is theorized that entrepreneurial ecosystems will influence the operations and effectiveness of social entrepreneurs through mechanisms such as the ecosystem’s diversity of resource providers, support infrastructure, entrepreneurial culture, and learning opportunities. In turn, social entrepreneurs can shape the entrepreneurial ecosystems in which they are situated by influencing the heterogeneity of ecosystem participants, garnering attention for the ecosystem, and increasing its attractiveness to stakeholders. Scholars examining entrepreneurial ecosystems have not studied the role of an increasingly important market actor: the social entrepreneur. At the same time, work on social entrepreneurship has not emphasized the community of social relations and cultural milieu in which social entrepreneurs found their ventures. The theory developed addresses both of these omissions and has important implications for practitioners focused on spurring entrepreneurial ecosystems and social entrepreneurship.
European cities are teeming with new ideas, initiated by citizens, professionals and policymakers. The problem is, despite all the case studies of social innovation that exist, it is still not sufficiently understood how social innovations are linked exactly to their wider urban context. It is this gap that the book addresses. We have defined social innovations as ideas, turned into practical approaches, which are new in the context where they appear and which are marked by a high degree of risk and uncertainty, e.g. due to the specific context they meet. According to this working definition, social innovations are, in a significant way, new and disruptive towards the routines and structures prevailing in a given (welfare) system or local setting. Given that non-profit organisation often act as a force for renewal in the local context, research on social innovations is inextricably connected to the study of non-profits.
In practice, innovations arise within a complex context of local discourses, policies and institutions. While there have been many case studies documenting this, few, and none in recent years, have made a hard comparative study of emerging patterns: which types of innovations in European cities and how are they linked to contexts of urban governance? A key indicator for successfully rolling out social innovations constitutes the urban governance context in which the innovative idea emerges and develops into either an organised structure or another sustainable governance arrangement, in which nonprofit organizations and/or civic engagement might play a central role.
The book is one of the main scientific final products of a three-year research project on local welfare (WILCO: Welfare Innovations at the Local level in favour of Cohesion)
This paper explores how social entrepreneurs use rhetoric to facilitate the pervasive adoption of new, socially focused, industry practices. Our conceptualization proposes that the nature of social entrepreneurs’ rhetoric hinges on perceptions of their relationships to the industry members they seek to influence. We develop a framework that explains the effects of two cognitive structures—identity and power—on social entrepreneurs’ perceptions of industry members and, in turn, the social entrepreneurs’ rhetorical strategies for persuading the industry members to adopt new practices. Our framework specifies mechanisms through which social entrepreneurs facilitate systemic social change and, in doing so, informs theory at the intersection of social entrepreneurship, sustainable social change, and rhetoric.
Regional policies for entrepreneurship are currently going through a transition from increasing the quantity of entrepreneurship to increasing the quality of entrepreneurship. The next step will be the transition from entrepreneurship policy towards policy for an entrepreneurial economy. The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach has been heralded as a new framework accommodating these transitions. This approach starts with the entrepreneurial actor, but emphasizes the context of productive entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is not only the output of the system, entrepreneurs are important players themselves in creating the ecosystem and keeping it healthy. This research briefing reviews the entrepreneurial ecosystem literature and its shortcomings, and provides a novel synthesis. The entrepreneurial ecosystem approach speaks directly to practitioners, but its causal depth and evidence base is rather limited. This article provides a novel synthesis including a causal scheme of how the framework and systemic conditions of the ecosystem lead to particular entrepreneurial activities as output of the ecosystem and new value creation as outcome of the ecosystem. In addition it provides a framework for analysing the interactions between the elements within the ecosystem. This offers a much more rigorous and relevant starting point for subsequent studies into entrepreneurial ecosystems and the regional policy implications of these.
Entrepreneurial ecosystems have emerged as a popular concept to explain the persistence of high-growth entrepreneurship within regions. However, as a theoretical concept ecosystems remain underdeveloped, making it difficult to understand their structure and influence on the entrepreneurship process. The article argues that ecosystems are composed of 10 cultural, social, and material attributes that provide benefits and resources to entrepreneurs and that the relationships between these attributes reproduce the ecosystem. This model is illustrated with case studies of Waterloo, Ontario, and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The cases demonstrate the variety of different configurations that ecosystems can take.
The concept of “wicked problems” has attracted increasing focus in policy research, but the implications for public organizations have received less attention. This article examines the main organizational and cognitive dimensions emerging from the research literature on wicked problems. We identify several recent approaches to addressing problem complexity and stakeholder divergence based on the literatures on systems thinking, collaboration and coordination, and the adaptive leadership roles of public leaders and managers. We raise some challenges for public management in some key functional areas of government—strategy making, organizational design, people management, and performance measurement. We argue that provisional solutions can be developed, despite the difficulties of reforming governance processes to address wicked problems more effectively.
The current growth of the social sector is undeniable. Just as the business sectors have experienced a great increase in productivity over the past century, the citizen sector is experiencing a similar transformation, with the number and sophistication of citizen organizations increasing radically. In this sense, the social entrepreneurship topic has aroused great interest in recent years and has developed into a cultural, economic and social phenomenon. This chapter analyzes the influence of cultural context on the emergence of social entrepreneurship and on the characteristics of social entrepreneurs. To test this influence, we rely on the Eurobarometer Entrepreneurship in the EU and Beyond to compare two different cultural contexts: the Latin European context and the Northern European context. On one hand, the main findings suggest that cultural context has a significant influence on the rate of social entrepreneurship. On the other hand, the results highlight that constituent variables, such as age, location, risk aversion and the capacity to respond to the opportunities in the environment, have a cultural bias.
We develop the institutional configuration perspective to understand which national contexts facilitate social entrepreneurship (SE). We confirm joint effects on SE of formal regulatory (government activism), informal cognitive (postmaterialist cultural values), and informal normative (socially supportive cultural norms, or weak-tie social capital) institutions in a multilevel study of 106,484 individuals in 26 nations. We test opposing propositions from the institutional void and institutional support perspectives. Our results underscore the importance of resource support from both formal and informal institutions, and highlight motivational supply side influences on SE. They advocate greater consideration of institutional configurations in institutional theory and comparative entrepreneurship research.
The impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008, the intractable problems of persistent poverty and environmental change have focused attention on organizations that combine enterprise with an embedded social purpose. Scholarly interest in social enterprise (SE) has progressed beyond the early focus on definitions and context to investigate their management and performance. From a review of the SE literature, the authors identify hybridity, the pursuit of the dual mission of financial sustainability and social purpose, as the defining characteristic of SEs. They assess the impact of hybridity on the management of the SE mission, financial resource acquisition and human resource mobilization, and present a framework for understanding the tensions and trade-offs resulting from hybridity. By examining the influence of dual mission and conflicting institutional logics on SE management the authors suggest future research directions for theory development for SE and hybrid organizations more generally.
For all its richness and potential for discovery, qualitative research has been critiqued as too often lacking in scholarly rigor. The authors summarize a systematic approach to new concept development and grounded theory articulation that is designed to bring “qualitative rigor” to the conduct and presentation of inductive research.
In this thesis, Philip Marcel Karré argues that hybridity can only be fully understood and managed when one considers both sides of the coin, and sees benefits and risks as each other’s flipsides. By analyzing hybrid organizations in the Dutch waste management sector, he develops a perspective on hybridity that can be used by policy makers, professionals and academics to pinpoint those dimensions that could produce benefits or risks. Karré argues that hybridity is neither a catastrophe nor a panacea, but that it needs to be managed properly. The biggest challenge will be to prove in every single case that the expected opportunities created through hybridity far outweigh the costs of controlling the risks it poses.
Social capital is an old concept but it entered into academic and policy debates only in 1990s. Its importance in explaining economic and social phenomena have been increasingly felt in recent years. Literature on theoretical and empirical aspects of social capital grew significantly during last decade. The whole notion of social capital is centred on social relationships and its major elements include social networks, civic engagement, norms of reciprocity, and generalised trust. Broadly speaking, it is defined as a collective asset in the form of shared norms, values, beliefs, trust, networks, social relations, and institutions that facilitate cooperation and collective action for mutual benefits. It is a complex multidimensional concept having different dimensions, types, and levels of measurement. Common types of social capital include: structure and cognitive; bonding, bridging, and linking; strong and weak; and horizontal and vertical. It can be measured and analysed at individual- and collective-levels in terms of social perspective and micro-, meso- and macro-levels in terms of geographic perspective. The properties of social capital, such as capacity to appear in as an explanatory variable in the production function, accumulation over time, capability of improving economic performance, investment with expected future returns, convertibility, and the need of maintenance, make it qualify as a form of capital, though there are some criticisms about the use of term 'capital' in social capital. Research on social capital remains in its initial stage and the concept is still elusive, prone to contextual definition, deficient in common measurement indicators, inability to explicitly quantify effects, and subject to various criticisms. Conceptual and measurement imprecision has led the concept prone to vague interpretation, less empirical application, and underestimation of its value. More empirical studies and testing of the concept on the ground is needed to develop a commonly accepted definition and measurement indicators that can explicitly disentangle and quantify its effects on overall development processes. Better conceptualisation and operationalisation of social capital theory is helpful to attract more investment on its development, design appropriate social policies, and promote sustainable development.
Local economic development and promoting racial reconciliation have been key foci in addressing the legacy of apartheid in South Africa. This article examines what is arguably the most well-established example of local economic development in South Africa, namely a local government and community-led development initiative in the small rural town of Stutterheim. As the project has evolved over a decade, it has changed its development focus to reflect the changing context and various internal constraints. The study reveals that even though the project has had difficulties, its sheer survival and ability to adapt in a rapidly changing society have been important. More general lessons include the significance of key social entrepreneurs and the development of social and human capital in concert with physical and business infrastructure.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the emerging practice of social entrepreneurship by exploring the historical and theoretical antecedents of social enterprise and its contemporary practice. By exploring key theoretical concepts, the paper draws comparisons between “for‐profit” and social entrepreneurs. The paper seeks to discuss the contemporary practice of social entrepreneurship. Discussion of the theory of entrepreneurship and contemporary practice of social entrepreneurs seeks to create a more nuanced view of social entrepreneurship and develop greater theoretical insights into this phenomenon and its recent expansion.
Design/methodology/approach
A phenomenological research approach was adopted, and 80 in‐depth interviews with social entrepreneurs from across the UK identified as the most appropriate data collection tool. Data analysis sought to identify and understand similarities between the more understood and studied behaviour of “profit‐seeking” entrepreneurs and those of an emerging group of social entrepreneurs.
Findings
In‐depth interviews revealed five key themes within which the practice of social entrepreneurship could be compared and contrasted with for‐profit entrepreneurship. These included: the entrepreneurial process, in particular, opportunity recognition; network embeddedness; the nature of financial risk and profit; the role of individual versus collective action in managing and structuring enterprises; and creativity and innovation.
Practical implications
Findings suggest that while the contemporary practices of social enterprises share many similarities with their for‐profit counterparts, significant differences can be found when comparing these practices with extant entrepreneurship research.
Originality/value
The paper addresses an emerging phenomenon within the practice and theory of entrepreneurship and offers insight into similarities and differences between entrepreneurship in the profit and not‐for‐profit sectors.
Social entrepreneurship—a new business model that combines a social goal with a business mentality—is in a transitional phase, from a rough cowboy market to a more established market niche. This process results in two interconnected dilemmas for the social entrepreneur. First, how it can capture market share despite its role as an antagonist to current market values. Second, how it can prevent the loss of its own core values in the course of greater interaction with the incumbent regimes. Using a tool known from innovation sciences to analyse radical innovations, namely strategic niche management, and both survey data and interviews from actors in the Netherlands, this article shows that social entrepreneurs have an attitude that is still more in line with the cowboy market than with the new diplomatic role they are expected to take on. Subsequently, it provides recommendations on how to achieve this new attitude.
In many developing countries those living in poverty are unable to participate in markets due to the weakness or complete absence of supportive institutions. This study examines in microcosm such institutional voids and illustrates the activities of an entrepreneurial actor in rural Bangladesh aimed at addressing them. The findings enable us to better understand why institutional voids originate and to unpack institutional processes in a setting characterized by extreme resource constraints and an institutional fabric that is rich but often at odds with market development. We depict the crafting of new institutional arrangements as an ongoing process of bricolage and unveil its political nature as well as its potentially negative consequences.
Social entrepreneurship, as a practice and a field for scholarly investigation, provides a unique opportunity to challenge, question, and rethink concepts and assumptions from different fields of management and business research. This article puts forward a view of social entrepreneurship as a process that catalyzes social change and addresses important social needs in a way that is not dominated by direct financial benefits for the entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship is seen as differing from other forms of entrepreneurship in the relatively higher priority given to promoting social value and development versus capturing economic value. To stimulate future research the authors introduce the concept of embeddedness as a nexus between theoretical perspectives for the study of social entrepreneurship.
The public sector is often considered synonym with inefficiency and a lack of motivation to be innovative. This paper seeks to contribute towards the literature surrounding social entrepreneurship in the public sector, through using institutional theory to underpin an e-Innovations model that promotes social entrepreneurship, while recognising how the adoption of innovation within the public sector is fostered. The proposed model seeks to serve as a process that threatens the conservative and risk-averse culture endemic in the public sector.
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) face a range of challenges when entering developing countries, including the need to adapt their business models to local markets' cultural, economic, institutional and geographic features. Where they lack the tangible resources or intangible knowledge needed to address these challenges, MNEs may consider collaborating with non-profit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to help facilitate new modes of value creation. In such cross-sector partnerships, parties contribute complementary capabilities along each stage of the value chain to develop products or services that neither could produce alone, creating and delivering value in novel ways while minimizing costs and risks. Our conceptualization broadens the business model concept to incorporate cross-sector collaborations, arguing such partnerships can create and deliver both social and economic value, which can be mutually reinforcing. We highlight, in particular,the competencies and resources NGOs can bring to such partnerships, including market expertise, legitimacy with clients/customers, civil society players and governments, and access to local expertise and sourcing and distribution systems. Beyond contributing to particular value chain activities, NGOs and companies can offer missing capabilities to complete each other's business models, or even co-create new and innovative multiorganizational business models. We stress four strategic imperatives for the success of corporate-NGO developing market partnerships e innovative combinations of firm and NGO resources and skills; the importance of trust-building, and of fit between the two organizations' goals; and supporting and understanding the local business infrastructure and environment.
The objective of the paper is to provide a theoretical model of cluster development that is informed by an appreciative interpretation of case studies. It argues that entrepreneurs are a critical element in the formation of clusters. Entrepreneurs are important actors in the development of clusters as complex adaptive systems, where the external resources associated with clusters are developed over time. Entrepreneurs who adapt to both constructive crises and new opportunities create the factors and conditions that facilitate their business interests and, in turn, contribute to the development of external resources. The paper examines the initial factors that influence the decision to become an entrepreneur and examine how external factors influence the formation and location of high-technology clusters.
With the advent of mainstreaming, several different business models operate within the fair trade system. These differences are discussed in terms of how the value chain is governed, suggesting the need for a more nuanced understanding of fair trade in the mainstream. Institutional governance, that is, the structures and standards of fair trade, is also discussed. It is argued that if fair trade is to be more than just another consumer standard, it needs to address both value chain and institutional governance. Policy implications, especially with respect to fair trade institutions, particularly Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, are set out. Copyright � 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Er zijn de afgelopen jaren diverse onderzoeken uitgevoerd naar de mate waarin overheden duurzaam inkopen. Hoewel er veel best practices zijn, wijzen deze onderzoeken erop dat nog niet alle mogelijkheden voor duurzaam aanbesteden worden benut. Dit volgt ook uit recent onderzoek naar circulair inkopen dat wij nader beschrijven in dit artikel. Met het huidige tempo worden de ambitieuze doelstellingen uit onder andere de Europese Green Deal niet gehaald. Wij pleiten onder meer voor een gewijzigde motiveringsplicht, een uitgebreidere registratieplicht op TenderNed, uniform rapporteren en voor meer maatwerkafspraken.
Social entrepreneurship is recognized as a key tool for overcoming social problems in society and supporting sustainable development. While social entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon, the field has experienced significant growth over the past 15 years, either when applied to social problem-solving in a traditional way, or focused on private-sector entrepreneurship and large-scale transformation. However, there is still a lack of scientific review papers examining various government regulatory mechanisms, implemented on different government levels for stimulating social entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship ecosystems. This study aims to analyze the state-of-the-art of social entrepreneurship and its relation with government and key non-state actors. Following Pittaway et al. (2014) and Cerchione et al. (2018), a systematic literature review was carried out using the Scopus database, covering the period from 2001 up to 20th of March 2018, which resulted in a corpus of 478 scientific articles. The papers were ranked by the number of citations, according to the Web of Science® database, from which were selected the 102 most representative works. The abstracts of these selected studies were organized and submitted into an analysis of content via the 2015 edition of Alceste® software. Following the reading of all sources, the papers were classified and a matrix of data was produced, which allowed the descriptive analysis. The results show that there are at least six levels of government intervention to facilitate the development of social entrepreneurship. It also identified 4 directions taken by the government in support of social entrepreneurship, and 11 regulatory mechanisms, both of which could be deepened in future studies. The role of key non-state actors in the social entrepreneurship field has also been discussed. Based on the study, a future research agenda on the topic has been defined in the following directions: (i) a combination and coordination of regulatory mechanisms for better stimulation of social entrepreneurship, (ii) government policy oriented to the whole social entrepreneurship ecosystem, (iii) social capital, (iv) business models for social entrepreneurship ecosystems and government support.
Collaborative arrangements and partnerships are increasingly perceived as the lifeblood of social entrepreneurship. How, why and when collaboration occurs across the social entrepreneurial ecosystem is an emergent area of research emphasis with potential to contribute to and develop new theories as well as provide practical insights. This introductory article, for the special issue on ‘The Collaborative Dynamic in Social Entrepreneurship’, draws on extant literature and three original contributions to explore the nature and challenges of the collaborative imperative in social entrepreneurship and to present possible avenues for future research. It also comments on theoretical underpinnings and provides methodological insights for the future study of collaborative social entrepreneurship.
Today, social entrepreneurship is considered as a growth driver for emerging countries. This phenomenon that combines economic utility and social efficiency has recently attracted considerable interest in the academic world as well as among public institutions. In Morocco, it is during the last decade we witnessed an infatuation toward this new type of entrepreneurship. Several actors are working today to promote the sector; however, there is a lack of research on their role in developing the ecosystem of the Moroccan social enterprise. Based on a qualitative study, this article aims to map the stakeholders of social entrepreneurship, their missions and their role in creating a favorable environment for the emergence of social entrepreneurs. The results are presented as an exploratory basis.
Addressing the environmental challenges of the 21st century requires substantial changes to the way modern society views and manages ecosystems. In particular, many authors contend that fundamental transformation of the largely sectoral, expert-centered ecosystem-management institutions of modern, Western societies is needed. There is increasing agreement that more adaptive, integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches, interlinked at multiple scales, would improve society's ability to sustainably manage complex social-ecological systems. Therefore, understanding processes of transformation, and factors that may enable transformation in ecosystem management, has become an active research area. We explore ecosystem-management transformations using a social-innovation framework. Based on three local-level case studies of transformation in freshwater management, we provide a pilot assessment of factors that may promote the emergence and adoption of integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches. Our analysis suggests that ongoing environmental degradation, increasing environmental awareness, and shifting societal values are creating fertile ground for the emergence and adoption of new approaches to ecosystem management. Based on the case studies we examined, we suggest that initiatives that foster environmental awareness and attachment to local ecosystems, develop capacity for social entrepreneurship in the environmental arena, promote dialogue between key stakeholders, and provide institutional support to new institutions may facilitate the emergence of integrated, collaborative ecosystem-management approaches.
Building upon recent developments in entrepreneurship education, we propose a novel framework for social entrepreneurship education founded upon a conception of social entrepreneurs as entrepreneurs embedded in competing institutional logics. Our model, in addition to teaching students "about" social entrepreneurship to allow them to acquire the knowledge and expertise required to successfully engage in social entrepreneurial activities, proposes to educate students "for" social entrepreneurship, by allowing them to acquire the skill of bridging three distinct and sometimes competing institutional logics: the social-welfare logic, the commercial logic, and the public-sector logic. To achieve this goal, we propose that social entrepreneurship education needs to make students aware of these different logics, to allow them to enact these competing logics and to enable them to combine logics when necessary to create innovative hybrid strategies. We explore how this overall strategy can be achieved by highlighting how various pedagogical tools can be adapted to contribute to each step.
This article explores how hybrid organizations, which incorporate competing institutional logics, internally manage the logics that they embody. Relying on an inductive comparative case study of four work integration social enterprises embedded in competing social welfare and commercial logics, we show that, instead of adopting strategies of decoupling or compromising, as the literature typically suggests, these organizations selectively coupled intact elements prescribed by each logic. This strategy allowed them to project legitimacy to external stakeholders without having to engage in costly deceptions or negotiations. We further identify a specific hybridization pattern that we refer to as "Trojan horse," whereby organizations that entered the work integration field with low legitimacy because of their embeddedness in the commercial logic strategically incorporated elements from the social welfare logic in an attempt to gain legitimacy and acceptance. Surprisingly, they did so more than comparable organizations originating from the social welfare logic. These findings suggest that, when lacking legitimacy in a given field, hybrids may manipulate the templates provided by the multiple logics in which they are embedded in an attempt to gain acceptance. Overall, our findings contribute to a better understanding of how organizations can survive and thrive when embedded in pluralistic institutional environments.
Hybrid organizations that combine multiple organizational forms deviate from socially legitimate templates for organizing, and thus experience unique organizing challenges. In this paper, we introduce and develop the concept of hybrid organizing, which we define as the activities, structures, processes and meanings by which organizations make sense of and combine multiple organizational forms. We propose that social enterprises that combine the organizational forms of both business and charity at their cores are an ideal type of hybrid organization, making social enterprise an attractive setting to study hybrid organizing. Based on a literature review of organizational research on social enterprise and on our own research in this domain, we develop five dimensions of hybrid organizing and related opportunities for future research. We conclude by discussing how insights from the study of hybrid organizing in social enterprises may contribute to organization theory.
Why do some entrepreneurial high-technology industrial clusters grow and prosper, while others stagnate? Even after several decades of research, we have yet to find a definitive answer. One of the main debates in the literature revolves around the importance of societal variables, such as the growth of a cohesive community, versus the importance of factor availability, such as the supply of highly educated labour. Employing a critical case study design to analyse the technology industry in metropolitan Atlanta, this article shows that although the availability of certain factors might be necessary, it is not sufficient without the crystallization of a cohesive social structure. More specifically, we argue that unless a local high-technology industry develops rich multiple, locally centred social networks, which embed companies in the region, cluster development will stagnate. This is true even if the region is extremely rich in all the factors identified as growth-inducing in the literature.
In this article, the underlying idea is that business incubators can support new potential companies in their development process by giving them credibility, but also by helping them to build promising support and business networks. The main research question is how business incubators can support entrepreneurs, in their efforts to build up networks for the benefit of their own company, by focusing more on social capital. The article evaluates three not-for-profit managed business incubators from different parts of Finland. The empirical material proposes that entrepreneurs who have received substantial support for the creation of business or support networks are more satisfied with the services of the business incubators than those who have not attained such support. Another finding was that support that focuses principally on financial capital is not the key aspect that business incubators should focus on when supporting entrepreneurs who try to develop a viable business.
The authors identify the following key constraints that smaller born-global firms face: lack of economies of scale, lack of resources (financial and knowledge), and aversion to risk taking. The authors explore how such firms overcome these constraints by using technology to achieve competitive advantage and by networking competencies to develop a range of alliances and collaborative partnerships. Thus, the article focuses on a particular aspect of business-to-business marketing, namely, how small firms achieve rapid growth internationally through alliances with suppliers, distributors, and joint-venture partners and how these relationships change over time to meet the changing needs of the partners.
Municipal support for social entrepreneurs isincreasingly seen as an approach for addressing social challenges incommunities. This study examines the activities that municipalities use tosupport the programs and efforts by private individuals in their communities,and how these activities affect local social entrepreneurship. Severalrationales for municipal support of social entrepreneurs are identified. For this study, social entrepreneurs are defined as individuals or privateorganizations that identify and address important social issues in theircommunities. Specifically considered is the initial stages of developing newprograms. The study was based on survey results from 202 senior managers inU.S. cities above 50,000 population in fall 2003 and follow-up, in-depthinterviews in early 2004. Slightly more than half of respondents reported that their cities had highlevels of social entrepreneurship. The level of support varies: only 34.2percent of municipalities actively support private organizations, 44.2 percentprovide some support, and 21.6 provide very little. Frequently mentionedsupport activities include help in applying for grants, bringing entrepreneurstogether to collaborate, providing information about social conditions forgrant applications, and assistance in developing new programs. Someapplications of the study to the field of public administration are offered.(TNM)
I propose a theory aimed at advancing scholarly research in social entrepreneurship. By highlighting the key trade-off between value creation and value appropriation and explaining when situations of simultaneous market and government failure may arise, I suggest that social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of sustainable solutions to problems of neglected positive externalities. I further discuss when positive externalities are likely to be neglected and derive the central goal and logic of action of social entrepreneurship.
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, becuase of the nature of these problems. They are wicked problems, whereas science has developed to deal with tame problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good; there is no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about optimal solutions to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no solutions in the sense of definitive and objective answers.
The research presented in this article employed a deliberate intervention to mobilize social capital and then studied the dynamics of the way in which it influenced community development. Whether or not social capital is able to facilitate development depends on the specific context in which it occurs. Although the general context of this study was that of small rural towns in Australia's outback that are experiencing decline, each of the four towns studied had unique features which could influence the mobilization of social capital. Rural communities have the willingness and capacity to mobilize but whether this capacity is actualized may well depend on the presence of other mobilizing factors. Specifically the intervention study found that a structure needs to be in place which can take the initiative and work across the community — engaging a range of organizations. Second, the structure needs to be supported, but not controlled, by local government. Third, it needs the kind of social entrepreneurship that can sustain a community‐wide vision and bring together the diverse groups within the community.
Résumé
Les recherches présentées s'appuient sur une opération destinée à mobiliser le capital social, afin d'étudier les dynamiques selon lesquelles il a influé sur le développement communautaire. L'aptitude du capital social à faciliter le développement dépend du contexte dans lequel celui‐ci se produit. Bien que cette étude se place dans de petites villes de campagnes reculées d'Australie confrontées à un déclin, chacune des quatre villes concernées présentaient des spécificités propres susceptibles d'influencer la mobilisation du capital social. Les communautés rurales ont la volonté et la capacité de se mobiliser, mais la concrétisation de cette capacité peut dépendre largement de la présence d'autres facteurs mobilisateurs. En particulier, l'analyse de l'opération montre qu'il doit exister une structure capable de prendre l'initiative et de travailler avec toute la communauté en impliquant tout un éventail d'organismes. Ensuite, il faut que la structure soit épaulée, et non contrôlée, par le gouvernement local. Enfin, elle a besoin d'une sorte d'esprit d'entreprise sociale qui puisse nourrir une vision à l'échelle communautaire et réunir les différents groupes présents dans la communauté.
Much of the theory and discourse on public bureaucracies treats them negatively, as if they incline inevitably toward weak
performance. This orientation prevails in spite of considerable evidence that many government organizations perform very well,
and in spite of many examples of their excellent performance. This article draws on the literature and research on effective
government organizations to select and develop conceptual elements of a theory to explain their effectiveness. The available
research suggests that such a theory should include the following components: supportive behaviors from external stakeholders
such as political authorities; agency autonomy in refining and implementing its mission; high “mission valence” (an attractive
mission); a strong, mission-oriented culture; and certain leadership behaviors. The discussion further posits that these factors
enhance several forms of motivation of people in the agency—task motivation, mission motivation, and public service motivation—that
can be differentiated but that must be linked together in effective government agencies.
Building a city ecosystem for impact
- Amsterdam Municipality
Amsterdam Municipality (2019), "Building a city ecosystem for impact", available at: www.
iamsterdam.com/en/business/amsterdam-impact/news-andinsights/news/building-a-cityecosystem-for-impact
Understanding social enterprise in The Netherlands
Backer, J.W. (2020), "Understanding social enterprise in The Netherlands", Social Enterprise Journal,
Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 18-45. doi: 10.1108/SEJ-04-2019-0025.
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- Company Mckinsey
McKinsey and Company (2016), "Scaling the impact of the social enterprise sector", Opgehaald van,
available at: www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/scaling-theimpact-of-the-social-enterprise-sector
Review of entrepreneurial ecosystem models
Jafarov, N. and Szakos, J. (2022), "Review of entrepreneurial ecosystem models", ASERC Journal of
Socio-Economic Studies, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 3-16, doi: 10.30546/2663-7251.2022.5.1.3.