Social Mission or Revenue Generation?: Challenges and Opportunities in Social Enterprise from Competing Institutional Logics

Thesis advisor: Eve SpanglerSocial enterprises are nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid organizations that use business methods to create social change (Dees 2007; Light 2005; Martin and Osberg 2007; Neck, Brush, and Allen 2009;). If it succeeds, the social enterprise model could prove to be a viable pathway to greater social justice in an era of decreasing funding for government services and nonprofits (Emerson and Twersky 1996; Harding 2004; Murphy and Coombs 2009; Wilson 2008). However, skeptics worry that the perils of privatization, bottom-line thinking, and deceptive marketing potentially embodied by the “business methods” that social enterprises employ may undermine the potential of this new approach to solving social problems (Bateman and Chang 2012; Farmer 2009; Nega and Schneider 2014). The three articles that make up this dissertation examined the ways social entrepreneurs perceived and managed tensions between social mission and market institutional logics. Their ability (or lack thereof) to reconcile these contradictory imperatives could contribute to whether social enterprises ultimately succeed or fail as vehicles for positive social change. Social Entrepreneurs at the Crossroads: Four Approaches to Responding to Dual Institutional Logics suggests that the widely accepted characterization of social entrepreneurs as compassionate individuals motivated to address intractable social problems innovatively (Alvord, Brown and Letts 2004; Lehner and Germak 2014; Mair and Marti 2006; Miller, Grimes, McMullen and Vogus 2012) is simplistic. From in-depth interviews with twenty (inter)nationally recognized social entrepreneurs I derived four distinct categories: Disillusioned Dreamers, Social Capitalists, Do-Somethings, and Bridgebuilders. Half of these respondents did not perceive tensions between logics; another quarter did not wrestle with the tensions they perceived. Only the Bridgebuilders perceived tensions and then persisted in focusing on both logics and sets of actors to harness synergies. As a result, only Bridgebuilders offer a truly hybrid model for social mission work within the current economic context, whereas the others hew toward a single dominant logic. One Size Does Not Fit All: Legal Form and US WISEs focuses on work integration social enterprises (WISEs), organizations that address the chronic unemployment of marginalized populations. The data demonstrated that contrary to the expectation that WISEs would exemplify “contested” organizations (Besharov and Smith 2014), eight of the ten WISEs studied did not experience significant conflict between social mission and market logics. Rather, WISEs generally had one logic that dominated their operations: a market logic in for-profit WISEs and a social mission logic in nonprofit WISEs. Workers’ employability emerged as an important variable, with for-profit WISEs creating jobs for more employable populations and nonprofits offering job training and “wraparound” services to harder-to-employ populations. Only two WISEs experienced substantial tensions, when social entrepreneurs attempted to prioritize a job training/services mission within a for-profit form. This data demonstrates that a job creation approach aligns best with a for-profit WISE form and a job training/services approach to a nonprofit WISE form. However, neither form has succeeded in creating a system-transforming model that successfully combines revenue generation with a robust training/services/job creation mission. This suggests that breaking traditional nonprofit and for-profit patterns to deliver substantial market and social mission outcomes within a single organization is a significant challenge. Stakeholder Resistance to Social Enterprise Hybridity examines how social entrepreneurs perceive the support of key stakeholders in their attempts to balance competing social mission and market logics. Despite evidence of social interest in ethical capitalism, this data suggests that well-resourced stakeholders push social entrepreneurs to prioritize price, revenue generation, and measurement. This includes both traditional organizational stakeholders and hybrid-specific stakeholders. Customers and clients demanded low prices and high value. Donors demanded quantification and impact measurement. Investors expected market rate financial return. Finally, social enterprise gatekeeper organizations (fellowship granting bodies) were focused on the market logic characteristics of sustainability, scale, and entrepreneurial ability, pushing the field toward market logic modes of operating. Social entrepreneurs generally responded by acquiescing to pressure to emphasize a market logic in their interactions. Counter to current literature that suggests social entrepreneurs should problem-solve to avoid single logic dominance, social entrepreneurs generally allowed price, business strategy, competition and measurement to shape their interactions with stakeholders. Given the importance of stakeholder buy-in for organizational legitimacy, the field of social enterprise needs to find a way to create and capture stakeholder support for dual logics rather than depending on individual social entrepreneurs to withstand the push toward marketization. Overall, despite persistent efforts at creative solutions to social problems by some individuals, the research shows a strong undertow for social enterprises to adopt business logics and business models.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Sociology

A protocol for eliciting nonmaterial values through a cultural ecosystem services frame

Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. Stakeholders\u27 nonmaterial desires, needs, and values often critically influence the success of conservation projects. These considerations are challenging to articulate and characterize, resulting in their limited uptake in management and policy. We devised an interview protocol designed to enhance understanding of cultural ecosystem services (CES). The protocol begins with discussion of ecosystem-related activities (e.g., recreation, hunting) and management and then addresses CES, prompting for values encompassing concepts identified in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and explored in other CES research. We piloted the protocol in Hawaii and British Columbia. In each location, we interviewed 30 individuals from diverse backgrounds. We analyzed results from the 2 locations to determine the effectiveness of the interview protocol in elucidating nonmaterial values. The qualitative and spatial components of the protocol helped characterize cultural, social, and ethical values associated with ecosystems in multiple ways. Maps and situational, or vignette-like, questions helped respondents articulate difficult-to-discuss values. Open-ended prompts allowed respondents to express a diversity of ecosystem-related values and proved sufficiently flexible for interviewees to communicate values for which the protocol did not explicitly probe. Finally, the results suggest that certain values, those mentioned frequently throughout the interview, are particularly salient for particular populations. The protocol can provide efficient, contextual, and place-based data on the importance of particular ecosystem attributes for human well-being. Qualitative data are complementary to quantitative and spatial assessments in the comprehensive representation of people\u27s values pertaining to ecosystems, and this protocol may assist in incorporating values frequently overlooked in decision making processes

Associations with photoreceptor thickness measures in the UK Biobank.

Spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) provides high resolution images enabling identification of individual retinal layers. We included 32,923 participants aged 40-69 years old from UK Biobank. Questionnaires, physical examination, and eye examination including SD-OCT imaging were performed. SD OCT measured photoreceptor layer thickness includes photoreceptor layer thickness: inner nuclear layer-retinal pigment epithelium (INL-RPE) and the specific sublayers of the photoreceptor: inner nuclear layer-external limiting membrane (INL-ELM); external limiting membrane-inner segment outer segment (ELM-ISOS); and inner segment outer segment-retinal pigment epithelium (ISOS-RPE). In multivariate regression models, the total average INL-RPE was observed to be thinner in older aged, females, Black ethnicity, smokers, participants with higher systolic blood pressure, more negative refractive error, lower IOPcc and lower corneal hysteresis. The overall INL-ELM, ELM-ISOS and ISOS-RPE thickness was significantly associated with sex and race. Total average of INL-ELM thickness was additionally associated with age and refractive error, while ELM-ISOS was additionally associated with age, smoking status, SBP and refractive error; and ISOS-RPE was additionally associated with smoking status, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis. Hence, we found novel associations of ethnicity, smoking, systolic blood pressure, refraction, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis with photoreceptor thickness

Capturing the whole-school food environment in primary schools

Abstract Objective: The school food environment is an ideal setting for encouraging healthy dietary behaviour. We aimed to develop an instrument to assess whole-school food environments; test the instrument in the school setting; and demonstrate its use to make food environment recommendations. Design: School food environment literature and UK school food guidance was searched to inform instrument items. The instrument consisted of (i) an observation proforma capturing canteen areas systems, food presentation and monitoring of food intake, and (ii) a questionnaire assessing food policies, provision and activities. The instrument was tested in schools and used to develop school food environment recommendations. Descriptive analyses enabled narrative discussion. Setting: Primary schools. Participants: An observation was undertaken at schools in urban and rural geographical regions of Northern Ireland of varying socio-economic status (n=18). School senior management completed the questionnaire with input from school caterers (n=16). Results: The instrument captured desired detail and potential instrument modifications were identified. School food environments varied. Differences existed between food policies and how policies were implemented and monitored. At many schools there was scope to enhance physical eating environments (n=12, 67%) and food presentation (n=15, 83%); emphasise healthy eating through food activities (n=7, 78%); and increase parental engagement in school food (n=9, 56%). Conclusions: The developed instrument can measure whole-school food environments in primary schools and also enabled identification of recommendations to enhance school food environments. Further assessment and adaptation of the instrument is required to enable future use as a research tool or for self-assessment use by schools

Developing a sense of place toolkit: Identifying destination uniqueness

It has long been recognised that the tangible and intangible characteristics that make a location distinctive and memorable, contribute significantly to destination image. How this destination feel is communicated, has largely been the domain of place branding and destination marketing, which have the potential to miss stakeholder voices. Recently though, practitioners are starting to carefully consider ‘sense of place’; that is an emotional attachment to place, which is defined more carefully in the literature review of this article, and which corresponds with long-running academic discussions. This paper attempts to identify some of these and bridge the gap between academic theory on sense of place and practice. In the UK, many rural areas are now seeking to operationalise sense of place through toolkit documents that might inform landscape interpretation and destination branding. A scenario echoed internationally, where local distinctiveness features in both rural and urban planning. However, sense of place in a tourism context, and more specifically the development of these toolkits, has received limited academic attention. Hence, this paper presents the case of Morecambe Bay, and the development of a dedicated sense of place toolkit. The subsequent case emerges from a collaboration between academics and practitioners and draws on participant observation, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Specifically, the paper outlines a series of workshop activities developed with destination stakeholders and identifies how these inform subsequent toolkit design. It offers a critical analysis of the benefits and potential pitfalls of employing this approach. This case is of value to academics and destination stakeholders interested in identifying and communicating the uniqueness and emotional tone of the destination. Key lessons and recommendations are identified for those engaging in similar toolkit development initiatives

The Relationship Between Ambient Atmospheric Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) and Glaucoma in a Large Community Cohort.

Purpose: Glaucoma is more common in urban populations than in others. Ninety percent of the world's population are exposed to air pollution above World Health Organization (WHO) recommended limits. Few studies have examined the association between air pollution and glaucoma. Methods: Questionnaire data, ophthalmic measures, and ambient residential area air quality data for 111,370 UK Biobank participants were analyzed. Particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm (PM2.5) was selected as the air quality exposure of interest. Eye measures included self-reported glaucoma, intraocular pressure (IOP), and average thickness of macular ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCIPL) across nine Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) retinal subfields as obtained from spectral-domain optical coherence tomography. We examined the associations of PM2.5 concentration with self-reported glaucoma, IOP, and GCIPL. Results: Participants resident in areas with higher PM2.5 concentration were more likely to report a diagnosis of glaucoma (odds ratio = 1.06, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.01-1.12, per interquartile range [IQR] increase P = 0.02). Higher PM2.5 concentration was also associated with thinner GCIPL (β = -0.56 μm, 95% CI = -0.63 to -0.49, per IQR increase, P = 1.2 × 10-53). A dose-response relationship was observed between higher levels of PM2.5 and thinner GCIPL (P < 0.001). There was no clinically relevant relationship between PM2.5 concentration and IOP. Conclusions: Greater exposure to PM2.5 is associated with both self-reported glaucoma and adverse structural characteristics of the disease. The absence of an association between PM2.5 and IOP suggests the relationship may occur through a non-pressure-dependent mechanism, possibly neurotoxic and/or vascular effects

Development of a peer support intervention to encourage dietary behaviour change towards a Mediterranean diet in adults at high cardiovascular risk.

BACKGROUND: Mediterranean diet (MD) interventions are demonstrated to significantly reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk but are typically resource intensive and delivered by health professionals. There is considerable interest to develop interventions that target sustained dietary behaviour change and that are feasible to scale-up for wider public health benefit. The aim of this paper is to describe the process used to develop a peer support intervention to encourage dietary behaviour change towards a MD in non-Mediterranean adults at high CVD risk. METHODS: The Medical Research Council (MRC) and Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) frameworks and the COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behaviour) theoretical model were used to guide the intervention development process. We used a combination of evidence synthesis and qualitative research with the target population, health professionals, and community health personnel to develop the intervention over three main stages: (1) we identified the evidence base and selected dietary behaviours that needed to change, (2) we developed a theoretical basis for how the intervention might encourage behaviour change towards a MD and selected intervention functions that could drive the desired MD behaviour change, and (3) we defined the intervention content and modelled outcomes. RESULTS: A theory-based, culturally tailored, peer support intervention was developed to specifically target behaviour change towards a MD in the target population. The intervention was a group-based program delivered by trained peer volunteers over 12-months, and incorporated strategies to enhance social support, self-efficacy, problem-solving, knowledge, and attitudes to address identified barriers to adopting a MD from the COM-B analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The MRC and BCW frameworks provided a systematic and complementary process for development of a theory-based peer support intervention to encourage dietary behaviour change towards a MD in non-Mediterranean adults at high CVD risk. The next step is to evaluate feasibility, acceptability, and diet behaviour change outcomes in response to the peer support intervention (change towards a MD and nutrient biomarkers) using a randomized controlled trial design