The social enterprise organisation: market sector organisations and social problem redress

Abstract

A social enterprise organisation seeks business solutions to social problems. It identifies social needs and uses the market to address them. Existing literature presents a variety of concepts and frameworks to connect market sector organisations with social amelioration agendas, including corporate social responsibility and stakeholder management. Yet, the demand for such organisations to contribute to resolving social problems remains, and international business and management scholarship in this area needs to be supplemented by literature on governance and regulation. The central objective of this thesis is to examine the potential of the social enterprise as a market sector organisation, to address social problems principally by examining a case study of a market sector organisation dealing directly with the climate crisis. The primary argument of the thesis is that the social enterprise has a unique internal context, which it harnesses to formulate strategies and to manage its external context consistent with a social mission. The unique features of its internal context enable the social enterprise organisation to enact the concept of social enterprise. These features include an explicit and solely social mission, social capital, social entrepreneurship, a stakeholder-ownership structure, and organisational hybridity and heterogeneity. In discussion of the principal case study findings, the thesis highlights that through a social mission, a stakeholder-ownership structure, hybridity and heterogeneity, the social enterprise can operate beyond stereotypes of market sector organisations. It does not have to focus purely on mechanisms for increasing individual, private wealth and can pursue social agendas as its purpose. Using its social capital and social entrepreneurship, the social enterprise can cooperate with other actors in constructing, through regulation and governance, a ‘choice architecture’ persuading actors to make socially ameliorative decisions. This lowers the complexity and uncertainty that characterise the social arena and can lead to opportunities for further cooperation for problem resolution. The central implications of the case study and the literature review are discussed in this thesis by examining the thesis findings in the context of the climate crisis. Through its unique features the social enterprise organisation is able to enact concepts proposed as opportunities for pursuing organisational resolutions to the climate crisis, perceived to be the realignment of incentives to which cooperation, politics and regulation can contribute. These concepts include ‘transformative leadership’ to pursue social equity and justice as a path towards resolution of the climate crisis, and ‘natural capitalism’, the realignment of capitalism with the value of ecosystems and natural resources. The social enterprise organisation possesses the motivation and capability to enact these concepts.