Social Enterprise Journal最新文献

Purpose

Effective refractive error (RE) coverage in a resource-constrained country such as Kenya could possibly be achievable if the current dominant commercial entrepreneurship is supplemented with alternative avenues such as social entrepreneurship. This study aims to explore the perceived impact of social enterprises (SEs) in scaling effective RE coverage in Kenya.

Design/methodology/approach

This was an exploratory study with data collected from representatives of SEs (n = 29), trainees of SEs (n = 112) and beneficiaries of eye care services provided by SEs (n = 674). Participants were recruited purposively with data collected through telephonic calls. Thematic analysis was carried out by categorizing the codes into categories and themes based on the semantic meaning of the codes.

Findings

The perceived impact of SEs from the representative perspective included entrepreneurship and livelihood (n = 3; 10.3%), skills development (n = 20; 69%), technology development (n = 7; 24.1%), access to specialized services (n = 7; 24.1%) and affordability, accessibility and availability of RE services (n = 27; 93.1%). From the perspective of trainees, the themes included economic empowerment (n = 99; 88.4%), improved quality of life (n = 84; 75.0%), sensitizing locals to RE during screening events (n = 112; 100.0%) and enhancing accessibility, availability and affordability (n = 107; 95.5%).

Originality/value

The perceived impact of SEs highlighted in this paper showcases that they are useful for integration into the eye health ecosystem in a resource-constrained country such as Kenya. Integration of SEs into the eye health ecosystem could potentially address the human resource challenge, scale RE service delivery, enhance awareness creation and address the cost barriers to current RE service delivery coverage.

Purpose

This study aims to examine the relationship between mentorship, innovation and entrepreneurship performance in Africa’s largest economy. This study argues that mentorship and innovation play significant roles in driving entrepreneurship performance in the country. It explores the impact of mentorship on entrepreneurial development, including the transmission of knowledge, skills and networks.

Design/methodology/approach

This study analyzes the role of innovation in fostering entrepreneurial growth and competitiveness, particularly in the context of Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. The authors engaged data obtained from the Youth Enterprise with Innovation (2019) and made use of the propensity score matching.

Findings

The findings suggest that effective mentorship programs and innovative approaches can enhance entrepreneurial performance, promote economic growth and contribute to sustainable development in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.

Originality/value

The literature on entrepreneurship in Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, has mainly focused on factors such as access to finance, the business environment and government policies, with limited research on the role of mentorship and innovation in entrepreneurship performance. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on entrepreneurship in Nigeria, particularly on the role of mentorship and innovation in entrepreneurship performance.

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of philosophies underpinning social innovation based on the action research strategies applied in the field.

Design/methodology/approach

Literature review was conducted to identify action research strategies referred to in the social innovation literature. Through stratified purposive sampling, the authors then selected nonprofit organizations, each closely associated with one of the strategies. Qualitative content analysis was applied to documents published by these organizations for an in-depth exploration of how the action research strategies frame the three dimensions of social innovation, namely, the product, process and empowerment dimensions.

Findings

The authors identified four broad action research strategies referred to in the social innovation literature. Each strategy inspires four distinct narratives of social innovation centered around key concepts: prototyping, evidence, asset-building and co-creation.

Research limitations/implications

The methodology used is characterized by depth rather than scope. Although diverse types of documents were used, the documents are limited to publications by four institutions. A deductive approach using the categories should be used in future empirical research.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the discussion about different schools and research agendas in the field of social innovation. In particular, the authors examine the action research strategies adopted in the field, shedding light on incompatible views and strategies within certain research clusters while identifying common ground between authors belonging to different schools.

Purpose

This paper aims to analyze the “crafts” of governance within social and solidarity economy (SSE) cultural organizations, considering formal and informal rules, to support their project of democratization of arts and culture and more generally of cultural democracy. The hypothesis is that it is through participatory and democratic governance that SSE can have a transformative role.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper builds upon a qualitative, multiple case study of three SSE organizations in the performing arts and audiovisual production in France. Although different in age, size and legal form, they all experiment a more participative governance system, not without tensions, to face deep institutional changes in their environment.

Findings

The results show that legal forms from the SSE are necessary safeguards but not sufficient to effectively implement a democratic governance beyond the “one member, one vote” principle. Democratic governance is supported by both formal and informal rules. By experimenting with innovative participative and democratic governance rules, these organizations contribute to the transformation of practices in the cultural field (democratization of art and culture) but also in society at large by fostering cultural democracy.

Research limitations/implications

Building upon three case studies, this exploratory work stresses important issues that are worth to explore on a larger scale to understand by which levers SSE can play a transformative role in the cultural field.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature on SSE and on governance by enlarging the analysis beyond the board of directors and the statutory rules. Applying the approach of collective action and reasonable values developed by Commons to SSE, it shows that participatory governance cannot be based on an ideal or a choice of preestablished values and principles but must leave room for creativity and representations of stakeholders not only to support transformation of practices within the cultural field but also externally by increasing cultural democracy.

Purpose

This paper aims to tentatively explore the benefits of placing art’s knowledge-building tradition, with its capacity to disrupt and reframe, at the centre of how we look at alternative organizing and alternative economic spaces, positioning lived experience, its uncertainties intact, at the heart of researching and practicing social enterprise (SE).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper explores indeterminacy through two case-study narratives, one of an academic arts-based research project and the other of a unique organization it encountered.

Findings

The paper describes the way juxtaposition, encounter and drift value indeterminacy as central to generative processes, challenging the control central to management and its research.

Research limitations/implications

The paper proposes that adopting an arts-based approach that challenges control can create a research instrument sensitive to similar tendencies in case studies, thus highlighting what is different and alternative about them. This responds to concerns about the diminishing centrality of SE’s democratizing ethic expressed in its scholarship, about creativity in its research and about its socially transformative potential.

Practical implications

The practice, by SEs of an approach welcoming chance, encounter, meandering paths and place-making with porous boundaries, proliferates transformative possibilities and is linked to democratization and participation.

Originality/value

Though dangerously challenging to accepted notions of academic rigour, this paper proposes an unusual thought experiment tied in with lived experiences, in themselves experimental in practice.

Purpose

Culture is increasingly recognized as a key component of local development, but this attention is largely focused on large cities. This paper aims to focus on the ways in which the innovative, participatory action-research (PAR) methods of IdeaLabs and community intervention workshops are used by two projects with solidarity economy enterprise (SEE) participants to activate place-based cultural resources for local development in small communities.

Design/methodology/approach

An in-depth reflexive analysis undertaken by researchers involved in the two projects, taking a feminist ethics of care perspective, demonstrates the ways in which these two PAR methods promote local development with the goal of fighting against the economic, social and cultural degradation of small cities and rural areas.

Findings

The PAR methods used by the two projects examined stimulate place-based local development initiatives through collaboration and knowledge co-production among participants and researchers. The projects go beyond an instrumental view of the use of culture and the arts for local development to innovate and demonstrate new methodologies for more participatory approaches.

Originality/value

This paper addresses a gap in social economy literature, presenting methods that can be used in PAR projects to catalyse the use of culture as a local development tool by local SEEs.

Purpose

This study aims to provide a contextualized look at the artisan sector in Zambia and asks: What factors contribute to scaling positive impact in artisan ventures in Zambia, and how can these factors be leveraged to promote positive economic, social and environmental outcomes for women and their communities.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach to gain a multi-layered understanding of artisan craft social enterprises in Zambia.

Findings

Purpose is found to be the primary driver of social and environmental impact in artisan social enterprises in Zambia, with female leadership a critical factor. Access to finance, markets and resources are also essential to help these organizations achieve their social missions.

Research limitations/implications

While this study provides valuable insights into the artisan sector, its scope was limited to the Zambian context, making the generalizability of the findings to other geographies uncertain.

Originality/value

This research makes a valuable contribution to the literature on social enterprises by highlighting the critical role of female leadership and purpose in driving positive impact in artisan businesses in Zambia. Additionally, the study underscores the importance of understanding the mechanisms through which artisan social enterprises create positive change. The study highlights the importance of artisan craft employment for women in Zambia and illustrates the impact of Zambian artisan ventures, both formal social enterprises and informal businesses, on creating positive social and environmental impacts in the country.