Developing strong social enterprises : a documentary approach

Social enterprises are diverse in their mission, business structures and industry orientations. Like all businesses, social enterprises face a range of strategic and operational challenges and utilize a range of strategies to access resources in support of their venture. This exploratory study examined the strategic management issues faced by Australian social enterprises and the ways in which they respond to these. The research was based on a comprehensive literature review and semi-structured interviews with 11 representatives of eight social enterprises based in Victoria and Queensland. The sample included mature social enterprises and those within two years of start-up. In addition to the research report, the outputs of the project include a series of six short documentaries, which are available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/SocialEnterpriseQUT#p/u. The research reported on here suggests that social enterprises are sophisticated in utilizing processes of network bricolage (Baker et al. 2003) to mobilize resources in support of their goals. Access to network resources can be both enabling and constraining as social enterprises mature. In terms of the use of formal business planning strategies, all participating social enterprises had utilized these either at the outset or the point of maturation of their business operations. These planning activities were used to support internal operations, to provide a mechanism for managing collective entrepreneurship, and to communicate to external stakeholders about the legitimacy and performance of the social enterprises. Further research is required to assess the impacts of such planning activities, and the ways in which they are used over time. Business structures and governance arrangements varied amongst participating enterprises according to: mission and values; capital needs; and the experiences and culture of founding organizations and individuals. In different ways, participants indicated that business structures and governance arrangements are important ways of conferring legitimacy on social enterprise, by signifying responsible business practice and strong social purpose to both external and internal stakeholders. Almost all participants in the study described ongoing tensions in balancing social purpose and business objectives. It is not clear, however, whether these tensions were problematic (in the sense of eroding mission or business opportunities) or productive (in the sense of strengthening mission and business practices through iterative processes of reflection and action). Longitudinal research on the ways in which social enterprises negotiate mission fulfillment and business sustainability would enhance our knowledge in this area. Finally, despite growing emphasis on measuring social impact amongst institutions, including governments and philanthropy, that influence the operating environment of social enterprise, relatively little priority was placed on this activity. The participants in our study noted the complexities of effectively measuring social impact, as well as the operational difficulties of undertaking such measurement within the day to day realities of running small to medium businesses. It is clear that impact measurement remains a vexed issue for a number of our respondents. This study suggests that both the value and practicality of social impact measurement require further debate and critically informed evidence, if impact measurement is to benefit social enterprises and the communities they serve

Juggling competing public values : resolving conflicting agendas in social procurement in Queensland

Organisations within the not-for-profit sector provide services to individuals and groups government and for-profit organisations cannot or will not consider. This response by the not-for-profit sector to market failure and government failure is a well understood contribution to society by the nonprofit sector. Over time, this response has resulted in the development of a vibrant and rich agglomeration of services and programs that operate under a myriad of philosophical stances, service orientations, client groupings and operational capacities. In Australia, these organisations and services provide social support and service assistance to many people in the community; often targeting their assistance to clients facing the most difficult of clients with complex problems. Initially, in undertaking this role, the not-for-profit sector received limited sponsorship from government, relying on primarily on public donations to fund the delivery of services. (Lyons 2001). Over time governments assumed greater responsibility in the form of service grants to particular groups: ‘the worthy poor’. More recently, government has engaged in widespread procurement of services from the not-for-profit sector, which specify the nature of the outcomes to be achieved and, to a degree, the way in which the services will be provided. A consequence of this growing shift to a more marketised model of service contracting, often offered-up under the label of enhanced collaborative practice, has been increased competitiveness between agencies that had previously worked well together (Keast and Brown, 2006). One of the challenges which emerge from the procurement of services by government from third sector organisations is that public values such as effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and professionalism can be neglected (Jørgensen and Bozeman 2002), although this is not always the case (Brown, Furneaux and Gudmundsson 2012). While some approaches to the examination of social procurement - the intentional purchasing of social outcomes (Furneaux and Barraket 2011) - assumes that public values are lost in social procurement arrangements (Bozeman 2002; Jørgensen and Bozeman 2002), alternative approach suggest such inevitability is not the case. Instead, social procurement is seen to involve a set of tensions (Brown, Potoski and Slyke 2006) or a set of trade offs (Charles et al. 2007), which must be managed, and through such management, public values can be potentially safeguarded (Bruin and Dicke 2006). The potential trade-offs of public values in social procurement is an area in need of further research, and one which carries both theoretical and practical significance. Additionally, the juxtaposition of policies – horizontal integration and vertical efficiency – results in a complex, crowded and contested policy and practice environment (Keast et al., 2007),, with the potential for set of unintentional consequences arising from these arrangements. Further the involvement of for-profit, non-profit, and hybrid organisations such as social enterprises, adds further complexity in the number of different organisational forms engaged in service delivery on behalf of government. To address this issue, this paper uses information gleaned from a state-wide survey of not-for-profit organisations in Queensland, Australia which included within its focus organisational size, operational scope, funding arrangements and governance/management approaches. Supplementing this information is qualitative data derived from 17 focus groups and 120 interviews conducted over ten years of study of this sector. The findings contribute to greater understanding of the practice and theory of the future provision of social services

Resourcing social enterprises: approaches and challenges

This is the second publication from the Bankwest Foundation Social Impact Series and includes preliminary findings from the Supporting Development and Growth in the Community Sector in Western Australia research program. This report is the first output of the Social Enterprise Financial Resilience project, which forms part of the program. Despite increasing interest in social enterprise, there is limited understanding about the factors that support the capacity for social enterprise to deliver social objectives. In particular, we know little about how social enterprises access and use financial and other resources to sustain their businesses and how this can influence their organisational resilience. There are suggestions that social enterprise and small private for-profit businesses face similar barriers to accessing commercial finance (Burkett, 2010; Mavra, 2011). However, there are also factors specific to social enterprise – related to their organisational structures, their business purposes, and their operating environments - that influence how social enterprises attract, use and choose financial and other resources. With regard to financial resources, there is growing interest in and popular discussion about social finance in general and impact investing in particular. Yet, the financial needs, barriers and effects of certain forms of finance on social enterprise resilience and impact remains unclear. The purpose of this report is to review the existing evidence about the resource needs and behaviours of social enterprises, and their barriers and opportunities to accessing financial and other resources. We augment this review with comments from workshops and interviews undertaken with 15 Western Australian social entrepreneurs, and seven social financiers and policy professionals in May-June 2015. Unpacking the financial needs and behaviours of social enterprises provides a platform for better understanding of the factors that affect financial resilience of social enterprises in Western Australia and beyond, and the tools we need to support such resilience. Of course, organisational sustainability requires access to resources beyond finance; we consider in this report wider resourcing needs and their implications for financial resilience.&nbsp

Finding Australia’s social enterprise sector: final report

Executive Summary Social enterprises are organisations that: Are led by an economic, social, cultural, or environmental mission consistent with a public or community benefit; Trade to fulfil their mission; Derive a substantial portion of their income from trade; and Reinvest the majority of their profit/surplus in the fulfilment of their mission. This document reports on the research findings of the Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector (FASES) project. FASES is a joint initiative of Social Traders and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. It is a first attempt to identify the range and scope of social enterprises in Australia. The methodology utilised in this research included: a review of existing literature and methods of social enterprise mapping; establishment of a project website and preliminary discussion paper to stimulate public engagement with defining and identifying Australian social enterprises, which resulted in four online responses to the discussion paper and 157 nominations of social enterprises to be included in the research; a series of workshops and interviews with 34 key informants to assist in defining social enterprise for the purposes of the research; identification of the social enterprise population through a combination of web and media review, review of existing databases and feedback through the project website; development and administration of an online survey; and collation and analysis of secondary data. Five hundred and thirty-nine organisations commenced the online survey, of which 365 were valid social enterprises according to our definition. Based on pre-existing research data and information from our survey, we estimate that there are up to 20 000 Australian social enterprises. This estimate takes into account that some not for profit organisations have multiple business ventures, and that not all social enterprises are incorporated as not for profits. Our survey results suggest that the Australian social enterprise sector is mature, sustainable and internally diverse with regard to mission and organisational structure. Amongst the 365 survey respondents, 73% had been operational for at least five years, and 62% were at least 10 years old. Australian social enterprises seek to fulfil a diversity of missions and serve a wide variety of beneficiaries. As a whole, the dominant foci of our survey respondents were on creating opportunities for people to participate in their community, and on finding new solutions to social, environmental, cultural and economic problems. Australian social enterprises operate in every industry of our economy. Our survey data suggest that they trade predominantly in local and regional markets and focus on fulfilling their missions at local and regional goals. However, some social enterprises operate in international markets and seek to respond to missions of international scope

How work integration social enterprises help to realise capability: a comparison of three Australian settings

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 identified capability, then analyzed by physicality, people, narratives and practices to explore how WISEs ‘assemble’ capability. Comparing across cases highlighted elements that contribute to capability realization. Evidence generated reveals features of work and organization design that might be deployed to enhance capability realization. Social geographical approaches provide insights into how social enterprises generate value

Organisational structures and processes for health and well-being: insights from work integration social enterprise

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) influence well-being of employees from these types of backgrounds. Methods: A case study ethnographic approach which included in-depth qualitative analysis of 93 semi-structured interviews of employees, staff, and managers, together with participant observation of four social enterprises employing young people. Results: The data revealed that young people were provided a combination of training, varied work tasks, psychosocial support, and encouragement to cultivate relationships among peers and management staff. This was enabled through the following elements: structure and space; funding, finance and industry orientation; organisational culture; policy and process; and fostering local service networks. The findings further illustrate how organisational structures at these workplaces promoted an inclusive workplace environment in which participants self-reported a decrease in anxiety and depression, increased self-esteem, increased self-confidence and increased physical activity. Conclusions: Replicating these types of organisational structures, processes, and culture requires consideration of complex systems perspectives on implementation fidelity which has implications for policy, practice and future research

Using micro-geography to understand the realisation of wellbeing: a qualitative GIS study of three social enterprises

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 experience of wellbeing. By mapping the sites within a social enterprise where wellbeing is realised, we provide a practical, empirical and replicable methodology that is useful for gaining insights into where and how wellbeing realisation occurs. This situates wellbeing as an upstream place-based resource likely to influence downstream health outcomes

Champions of Social Procurement in the Australian Construction Industry: Evolving Roles and Motivations

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 roles in institutional vacuums with little organisational legitimacy and support. By mobilising theories of how organisational champions diffuse innovations in other fields of practice, this paper contributes new insights into the evolving nature of these newly emerging roles and the motivations which drive these professionals to overcome the institutional inertia they invariably face. The results of semi-structured interviews, with fifteen social procurement champions working in the Australian construction industry, indicate that social procurement champions come from a wide range of professional backgrounds and bring diverse social capital to their roles. Linked by a shared sense of social consciousness, these champions challenge traditional institutional norms, practices, supply chain relationships, and traditional narratives about the concepts of value in construction. We conclude that, until normative standards develop around social procurement in the construction industry, its successful implementation will depend on external institutional pressures and the practical demonstration of what is possible in practice within the performative constraints of traditional project objectives.</jats:p