Search

While policies in support of social and commercial entrepreneurship are widely used to foster economic growth and increase prosperity, little is known about the effectiveness of various interventions. Despite the diversity of approaches, some places remain more conducive to developing entrepreneurship than others. Scotland is an interesting context in which to study entrepreneurial support and particularly business support to social enterprises. Despite the wealth of support available in this country, practitioners still face numerous challenges at various stages of entrepreneurial development. Drawing on the analysis of qualitative data emerging from a study exploring social enterprise practitioners’ views on business support provision, and considering pre-start-up, start-up and established stages of social enterprise development, this paper shows that, currently, support is poorly-coordinated, inadequate and sometimes repetitive. Our study reveals conflict between service providers and a mismatch between social enterprise policy aspirations and practical implementation. We conclude that the implementation of social enterprise policies lacks a holistic approach and is based on ad-hoc support, making it inefficient and wasteful. Finally, we highlight that the amount of business support provided does not equate to effectiveness and call for ongoing scrutiny and monitoring of policy implementation.

The global aging demographic is putting pressure on state-delivered health and social care services. As the austerity agenda in the UK cuts state-funded service provision for older people despite increasing demand, social enterprise has become a politically and economically attractive model for the sustainable delivery of some public services. Yet little is known about the impact of social enterprise on the health and wellbeing of older people. In this paper we address this gap in understanding and consider social enterprise activities as complex public health-promoting interventions. Our study aimed to understand what impact social enterprise activities had on the health and wellbeing of participants aged over 50, and also how that impact was created. To achieve this, we conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with a sample (n = 43) of staff, volunteers, clients and carers aged over 50 who were involved in activities delivered by three social enterprises. Using a thematic analysis to explore manifest and latent themes, two antecedents of subjective younger age emerged explaining how benefit was created, namely downward social comparison and identity. The social enterprise activities we studied benefited participants' health and wellbeing, impacting positively on participants' sense of purpose, social support, connectedness and inclusion. These health and wellbeing benefits can be considered as outcomes of complex public health interventions for older people, and we relate these outcomes to beneficial conditions within the intermediary social determinants of health. We conclude by discussing the future impact of social enterprise activities and current UK policy on the structural determinants of health.

In this paper, we argue that social enterprise could represent a means of tackling rural challenges of providing sustainable economic development, addressing the withdrawal of public services and promoting community cohesion. The paper draws upon a review of existing academic as well as policy literature and develops a conceptual framework that helps to understand how to unlock the potential contribution of social enterprises to rural development. Drawing on an exploratory study conducted in two rural areas of Scotland we use interview data from social enterprise stakeholders to populate the conceptual framework and its rural (geographic), policy and social enterprise domains. Our study suggests that social enterprises can potentially enable an integrated approach to addressing local issues at the local level. They can create locally responsive services that fit the rural context. However, unlocking the potential of rural social enterprise may require moving beyond traditional policy silo approaches that treat economic development, community cohesion and public services as separate and disconnected since national policy-making frameworks have not always translated into practice at the rural level. Additionally, policy treatment of social enterprise needs to move beyond efforts to ‘scale up’ and achieve economies of scale. Collaborations between groups of social enterprises, and between social enterprises and public authorities can lead to economies of scope, particularly where strong trust-based relations within communities harness self-help and the co-production of services. With appropriate guidance and support, many rural challenges and needs could be transformed into opportunities for social enterprise development. In highlighting the opportunities and challenges faced by rural social enterprises, the paper suggests potential research gaps that, if filled, could contribute towards recognising and unlocking their full potential., Highlights • Rural social enterprise conceptual framework combines rural, policy and social enterprise domains. • Social enterprises recognise the interconnectedness between different rural needs and potential solutions. • Rural challenges could be transformed into opportunities for social enterprise and community development. • National social enterprise policies are not well-translated into practice at the rural level. • Future success or rural social enterprises depends on breaking down traditional policy silo.

Social isolation and loneliness has been classed as a major public health concern due to its negative physical and mental health implications, and living in a remote or rural area is a prominent contributing risk factor. Community-led social enterprise models are recognised in government policy as a potential preventative measure for social isolation and loneliness, yet there is a lack of understanding of their application in rural contexts. The objectives of this paper are to investigate the role of social enterprise in addressing social isolation and loneliness in rural communities, and to explore the pathways in which social enterprise activity may act upon the health and wellbeing of social enterprise beneficiaries. We also discuss the capacity of rural community members to deliver and sustain such services. The study used in-depth interviews over a three-year period with 35 stakeholders from seven social enterprises in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, including board members, staff, volunteers and service users. Findings showed that social enterprises are successfully providing activities that counteract factors contributing to social isolation and feelings of loneliness, leading to wider health and wellbeing benefits for individuals. However, the sustainability and continuity of social enterprises are questionable due to the burden on smaller populations, limited expertise and knowledge of running social enterprises, and effects on the personal lives of social enterprise volunteers and staff. This study supports suggestions that social enterprises can be generators of health and wellbeing through their varied remit of activities that impact on the social determinants of health. However, it also shows that relying on social enterprise as a particular solution to social isolation and loneliness is precarious due to complexities associated with rurality. Therefore, rural policy and practice must move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to tackling social isolation and loneliness, recognise the need for local level tailored interventions and, through harnessing the potential or rural social enterprises, enable flexible service provision that correlates with rural context., Highlights • Rural social enterprise activity is impacting on factors that contribute to social isolation and loneliness. • Rural social enterprises provide services that generate opportunities to gain social support and form social relationships. • As a result, rural social enterprises have a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of social enterprise stakeholders. • Social enterprise service provision also has negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of staff and volunteers.

Although increasingly prominent in research, policy and practice, little is known about social innovation in a rural context. To address this knowledge gap, our paper explores how rurality might affect the social innovation process. Drawing on 68 interviews carried out with beneficiaries, service providers and external stakeholders of a rural social enterprise initiative in Scotland, the paper adopts a realist evaluation theory (Pawson and Tilley, 1997) approach combined with Calo et al.’s (2019) social innovation analytical framework to identify Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations for rural social innovation. The findings highlight that specific characteristics of rural places can act as stimuli of social innovation. Positive outcomes of a social innovation can potentially be rooted in rural peculiarity and its problematic context. Push factors, born out of necessity, lead to reactive social innovation and pull factors, derived through harnessing perceived opportunities in the environment, lead to proactive social innovation. Importantly, push factors do not undermine the establishment of social innovation – indeed, they can actually promote social innovation and strengthen its validity. The paper also shows that outcomes of the social innovation process might not be specific to rural areas. Instead, the pathway to the desired outcomes is conditioned by rural factors, shaping the contexts and mechanisms of rural social innovation. As different rural locations might have different resources to address local challenges, social innovation processes vary from one case to another, although the challenges being addressed might be similar. As such, rural social innovation policies should not be ‘over prescribed’. Context creates both challenges and solutions and influences the type and form of mechanisms used to achieve a desirable social innovation outcome.

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) - funded by Scottish Government and the European Social Fund - adopts a ‘public venture capital’ model to support socially innovative organisations. This article critically explores the use of public venture capital programmes to fund and grow the social economy through the case study of Heavy Sound Community Interest Company. We conclude that, while SIF funding helped Heavy Sound to scale-up an effective intervention in the short term, further significant scaling might undermine the project’s success and long-term sustainability was not assured. We call for further research into the long-term consequences of public venture capital programmes coming to an end, including coordinated evaluation of the SIF.

Governments move away from their roles as providers and take on roles as facilitators and enablers. Such transformations provide opportunities for individuals to play an active role in improving th...

In the transition from welfare to ‘enabling’ states, governments move away from their previous roles as providers of services. Individuals and communities as collectives of individuals are encouraged to play a more active role in improving their own wellbeing and resilience, thus shifting from dependence on the state to self-reliance. This proposed transformation is highly complex and poorly understood. We question whether government interventions and policies aimed at strengthening community empowerment can lead to an enabling state. By examining externally funded community projects in six rural Scottish villages, we investigate whether these development initiatives helped to improve socio-economic aspects related to community resilience. We used uni/bivariate and multivariate analysis with data from 345 structured interviews. Our results show that those communities where projects were completed had a higher average social resilience than the communities where projects remained incomplete. Social resilience factors, including social ties and networks, were predictors of completing community projects. Our results indicate that some communities are harder to activate and require external state support which addresses local needs so that these communities play a more active civic role. If states seek ‘resilient communities’, interventions must be co-designed with citizens to create conditions that will engage and enable people to take more control of aspects of their future, including those communities with a history of minimal civic participation.

Abstract This article explores a process meant to empower disadvantaged communities that have not previously engaged in government-instigated civic projects. Drawing on a large exploratory study of an empowerment project in seven Scottish rural communities, findings include that empowering communities should harness community development techniques that use both external actors and sources of support (i.e. exogenous practices), and those that utilise assets from within the community (i.e. endogenous practices). The paper presents the Engagement-Participation-Empowerment Model showing stages in transferring power from external actors to local communities. The paper highlights that the process of community empowerment starts with engagement and follows with participation – both representing a precondition of community empowerment. The paper indicates that there are limits to which community members are capable of embracing current community empowerment policies and showing that even targeted ‘well-tailored’ community empowerment programmes might fail. Implications of the study for further research and policy are identified.

Purpose This paper aims to explore how nascent social businesses move beyond the incubation phase and it develops understanding of how early-stage social businesses access finance to achieve growth. Design/methodology/approach This exploratory and inductive study is based on four focus group discussions with early-stage social entrepreneurs, “successful” social entrepreneurs who had achieved growth, and social impact investors. Findings Social capital allows a social business founder to access financial capital to “prove their concept”, or to directly attract investment from family and friends for start-up costs. To gain funding, social entrepreneurs present the desired image of the heroic change-maker. Interestingly, creating the right impression is equally important in securing financial capital as the “hard-work” itself. Research limitations/implications This study was conducted in London, which, like many other “global” cities, has a unique business environment. The study is exploratory in nature. Further work in this area is required to draw more definitive conclusions. Practical implications Financial products offered to social businesses are often dispersed and inappropriate. The study indicates that access to “soft loans” and grants is critical in the early stages of social business growth and that social entrepreneurs use both formal and informal funding sources to develop their businesses. Where a person is not connected to wealthy acquaintances either through family, or through social networks, they may often struggle to access finance in a world where the network’s resources appear to be as important as the entrepreneur’s resourcefulness. This has particular implications for the demographic make-up of “successful social entrepreneurs” operating social businesses, as these may be drawn from the most privileged and/or well-connected members of a group which already appears skewed towards white middle-class males. Social implications This study highlights that current support structures favour relatively privileged social entrepreneurs rather than encompassing and empowering those disadvantaged, social minority groups and those in the greatest need. This is important because social business is often portrayed, possibly incorrectly, as a mechanism for addressing poverty through empowerment of disadvantaged groups. Originality/value Research in social business development has largely neglected the social and cultural dynamics that embed start-ups. This paper tackles this gap and contributes to building knowledge in the area of early-stage social business development.

This article focuses on hard-to-reach communities with weak histories of engagement and it explores whether facilitated community interventions can empower and develop community resilience. Drawing on data from 6 communities, the article indicates a need for tailored and context-specific support that matches local needs. Implementation of community projects is not linear and the delivery of interventions in hard-to-reach communities is associated with the risk of failure. Developing community resilience among communities that do not engage requires long-term interventions, on-going input, and a collaborative approach to working with communities to support equal and harmonized development.

Scottish Government-commissioned Research Programme ‘Vibrant Rural Communities’: ‘Governance and Decision-Making for Community Empowerment’ (2011–2016)