Neoliberalism by stealth? Exploring continuity and change within the UK social enterprise policy paradigm

Social enterprise has been portrayed as challenging neoliberalism, and alternatively, as neoliberalism by stealth. Here we conceptualise social enterprise as a microparadigm nested within wider political and economic frameworks. Our analysis of continuity and change over a period of political and economic crisis in England demonstrates considerable evidence of normative change in the ideas underpinning social enterprise policies. However, further analysis reveals that the (neoliberal) cognitive ideas underpinning the social enterprise paradigm remained intact. This suggests that policy paradigms can accommodate normative differences within a shared cognitive framework, and hence, are more fluid, and have greater longevity, than previously recognised

Emerging resource flows for social entrepreneurship; theorizing social investment

In the UK and elsewhere, a ‘market’ in social investment has been developing rapidly over the last 10-15 years, yet there has not been an academic study of the phenomenon to date. This paper aims to address this important gap in social entrepreneurship research. Empirically, the aim of this paper is to outline the nature, scale, and forms of these financial flows. Theoretically, the aim is to conceptualize social investment and build an analytic model of its different orientations. The paper suggests three future scenarios for social investment that blend, in different combinations, instrumental and substantive rationalities and logics

Synthetic Grid: A critical framework to inform the development of social innovation metrics

Overall, Work Package 3 (WP3) of the CRESSI (Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation) project aims to address two overarching questions: 1. What are the relationships between social impact, performance measurement and accountability in the processes of social innovation? 2. How can effective performance measurement enhance the impacts and outcomes of social innovation processes, particularly for the disenfranchised or disempowered? As a foundation for these research objectives, this paper develops a critical accounting framework to inform the development and operationalization of a range of social innovation metrics that will be used elsewhere in the CRESSI project. The ultimate purpose of this work is to help shape appropriate and effective methodologies and indicators by which the empirical material in CRESSI can be tested in terms of its presentation of innovations to alter the structural relations that cause and perpetuate marginalization for target populations. Such analyses will also inform the overall policy and practice recommendations of CRESSI

An Extended Social Grid Model for the Study of Marginalization Processes and Social Innovation

The Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (CRESSI) project focuses on one over-arching research objective: to develop a novel theoretical framework better to understand the economic underpinnings of marginalization and social innovation in the European Union. Specifically, this project will inform future EU policy making in two ways: by means of a detailed analysis of how socio-economic structures marginalize vulnerable populations; by means of an exploration of the potential role of social innovation as an institutional change phenomenon to address such structures. An important conceptual component is drawn from the work of Jens Beckert and his Social Grid Model (2010). This research develops an Extended Social Grid Model that allows CRESSI to explore the structural issues that cause and reproduce marginalization. However, it needs to be stressed at the outset that the intention of this model – and the wider framework within which it sits – is to provide a mode of thinking to inform subsequent analysis and policy development rather than to represent a thorough commentary on individual thinkers and their schools of thought. The Social Grid model and the wider CRESSI framework operate, therefore, as theoretical orientations for the project as a whole: as a result, the exposition here is only the first of what are likely to be several iterations as the project develops. Extending this model, CRESSI suggests that a social grid, at the macro-level or social-environmental level of structures, is enacted via contingent sources of power to affect (positively or negatively) the individual’s ability to realize her own capabilities. Finally, the model allows social innovation to be seen as a set of processes and interventions that can disruptively and incrementally alter one or more of the three social forces within a particular social grid, the dynamics across the social forces and, potentially, the power sources that structure it in a given historical context to reduce the marginalization of certain populations. Moreover, this may also include processes that empower the marginalized to become change agents (or institutional entrepreneurs) in terms of the forces and structures that cause their own marginalization. This paper explores Beckert’s model and extends it drawing on two other key sets of theories around power (Michael Mann) and capabilities (Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum) that constitute the overall analytic framework for CRESSI and which are discussed in more detailed elsewhere in the CRESSI project. Where appropriate we reference ideas from CRESSI working papers so as to point to further discussion as well as some of the inspirations and ideas for this extended social grid models

The Landscape of Social Investment: A Holistic Topology of Opportunities and Challenges

This report provides a holistic account of the state of play in the emerging field of social investment, defined as the flow of resources – either market or non-market generated – that fulfils the funding needs of organisations that primarily create social or environmental value. It also looks forward to some of the future opportunities in this space. The main conclusion is that the development of social investment is currently at a crossroads: there is enormous potential for growth, but there are also formidable institutional barriers to be overcome. This research assesses both current research and practice across institutions in supply, intermediation and demand in order to analyse current developments and build proposals for taking advantage of future opportunities. It sets out key definitions and builds a series of analytic frameworks and applies them to the landscape of social investment. Although highly innovative, social investment institutions are still marked by traditional boundaries which actors from the private, public and third sectors find it difficult to cross. Issues of risk are seen as the main barriers, but it is suggested that discussion of risk masks deeper uncertainties about the role and value of social return. Such uncertainties are reflected in ambiguities about the extent to which social investment is non-profit or for-profit in nature, in divergent views about the role of intermediaries, and in assessments of the value of the further development of social equity finance as a way of increasing the social investment market as a whole. This paper considers macro-structural questions that require a reassessment of some of the assumptions built into current frameworks for analysing the state of social investment, which are still heavily influenced by conventional capital market models. In addition, it outlines a number of opportunities for addressing micro-market issues that could support the further growth of social investment, particularly for social enterprises

Re-assessing social innovation to tackle marginalisation

A Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (CRESSI) policy briefing paper based on CRESSI Deliverable 1.1: Report on Institutions, Social Innovation & System Dynamics from the Perspective of the Marginalise