Social Entrepreneurship between Cross‐Currents: Toward a Framework for Theoretical Restructuring of the Field

Abstract

Scholars have characterized social entrepreneurship as an “accumulative fragmentalism,” primarily characterized by the use of case studies featuring prominent and innovative profiles of social enterprises and entrepreneurs. However, today, social entrepreneurship is between cross‐currents. On the one hand, it seeks, as a subfield, to solidify its theoretical and methodological underpinnings and standpoints. On the other hand, it is consistently exposed to field expansion, given that a number of its underlying frameworks, commonly shared with other fields (such as sustainability and corporate social responsibility [CSR]), are opening up to wider vistas of conceptualization and theorization. This is often through the influence of practice as well as theory. The contribution of the paper is threefold. First, it enhances our understanding of social entrepreneurship field development by identifying cross‐currents and by highlighting new angles for paradigmatic and theoretical positioning. Second, it implements a framework that scholars previously employed within the original field of entrepreneurship (ourdieu's theory of capitals and their transformations); in doing so, it also proceeds to propose an enrichment to the framework by including additional capitals that are specifically relevant for the field of social entrepreneurship and that are influenced by common agendas, as those exist in the fields of sustainability and CSR. Third, it offers insights for theory, as well as practice, which relate to understandings from the first two contributions.

Notes

3. Scholarly argument, (e.g., Nicholls 2010) does not always make a definitive distinction between the notions of paradigm as utilized by Kuhn (1970) or Burrell and Morgan (1979); the discussion on paradigms and the similarities/differences between the ways that Kuhn (1970) has defined them versus Burrell and Morgan (1979) is not new, and we can trace references in organizational studies from the early 1990s (Jackson and Carter 1991; Willmott 1993). One interesting assertion is that potentially all social science is pre‐paradigmatic (Willmott 1993). Although Burrell and Morgan (B&M) (1979) based, to a certain extent, their conceptualization of paradigms on Kuhn's (K)(1970) conceptualization, there are differences as noted in the work of the authors above. Most notably, such differences pertain to the nature of knowledge, the ways of discovering knowledge, as well as intrinsic elements of their character (convergent [B&M] versus divergent [K]; synchronic [B&M] versus diachronic [K]) (Willmott 1993). Schultz and Hatch (1996) developed several options in order to address the limiting features of the framework, such as incommensurability, via a relational disposition between paradigms, of which “interplay” is one example—and the one most fitting the present analysis.

4. According to the definition of Chell (2007, p. 17), habitus is “the holistic structuration of one's circumstances and surroundings.”

5. Tatli and Özbilgin (2012) have, in other studies, systematized capital transformations in a five‐step framework that operationalizes intersectionality (p. 195); a simplified version of their proposed framework includes:

(1)	Identification of forms of symbolic capital (which is defined as the “capacity to define and legitimize cultural, moral and ethical values, standards and styles” (Bourdieu 1986; Karatas‐Ozkan and Chell 2010, p. 85)).
(2)	Identification of forms of social capital.
(3)	Investigation of organizational processes that highlight the value of social and cultural capitals, as well as the ways in which they become resources for accessing power.
(4)	Search for group‐based attributes’ legitimacy of the above.
(5)	Mapping of the actors across the organizational field, as well as the “wider geographical and temporal context” (Tatli and Özbilgin 2012, p. 195).

6. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/urban/pdf/0404final_report.pdf.

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8. http://www.theguardian.com/social‐enterprise‐network/2012/sep/18/japanese‐social‐enterprise‐triumph‐adversity‐ (accessed August 12, 2014).

9. http://socialenterprise.guardian.co.uk/social‐enterprise‐network/2012/sep/18/japanese‐social‐enterprise‐triumph‐adversity (accessed February 2012).

10. OECD (2011) Compendium of OECD Well‐being Indicators.

11. In the ways, for example, in which the French health campaign slogans evolved from bien‐etre to mieux‐etre (“well‐being” to “better‐being”), shifting the focus from a “pathology” discourse to a “quality of life enhancement” discourse.

12. http://www.salutogenesis.hv.se/eng/IUHPE_GWGS.9.html (accessed August 12, 2014).

13. http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/06/seif2012/ (accessed February 2012).

14. Interestingly , the conceptualization on the basis of “capitals” is finding its way into policy, as well as the public sphere. The 2013 BBC class calculator makes reference to at least three interrelated forms of capital: social, cultural, and economic (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine‐22000973).

15. An article, which appeared at The Guardian's Sustainable Business section, made a similar argument in 2011 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable‐business/2012‐predictions‐corporate‐social‐responsibility).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katerina Nicolopoulou

Katerina Nicolopoulou is senior lecturer, Strathclyde Business School at University of Strathclyde.