Presentation of PhD project Working title: Organisation, innovation and market strategies in SE-public collaboration. Christian Franklin Svensson, PhD

Presentation of PhD project

Working title:Organisation, innovation and market strategies in SE-public collaboration.

Christian Franklin Svensson, PhD fellow Centre for Social Entrepreneurship

Roskilde University, Denmark



•Strengths and hurdles in the organizational relationship in public-social enterprise (SE) cooperation

Empirical context

Municipality in the south of Denmark

Outskirts of Denmark in a negative socio-economic understanding

Four different SEs





Methodological approach

•Interviews:-Leaders and employees at four different social enterprises-Municipal officials and politicians

•Policy and document analysis

•Observation (meetings).



Preliminary findings

•Constellation is difficult to balance

•Bureaucratic red tape

•Top-down mechanisms

•Expectations are poorly aligned

•Two distinctly different organisational cultures



Public-SE relationships in an organisational view.

“I think if the municipality continues having silo thinking and to have these very hierarchical constructions then they are not able to keep up with progress. Because development is something else, and because things move quickly, I see the municipality as quite old and dusty.”

Leader of a SE



Public-SE relationships in an organisational view.

•Transparency and democracy in SE.(Defourny 2011; Defourny, Hulgård, Pestoff 2011; Hart, Laville & Cattani 2010; Hulgård 2010; Laville 2010)

•“In certain countries, enterprises are frequently co-operative in name only. Similarly, an associative or mutual status sometimes provides a legal cover for para-public agencies and for-profit economic activity.” (Laville 2010: 229).



Theoretical approach

Hybridity and ambivalence

“A need to rethink the idea of hybridity to reflect the diverse and multifaceted world we live in. Hybrid or creole concepts are thus becoming more general in their applications.” (Hannerz 1987: 551).

“To me at least creole has connotations of creativity and of richness of expression. Creolist concepts also intimate that there is hope yet for cultural variety.... the increasing interconnectedness of the world also results in some cultural gain. Again, ‘a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world.” (Hannerz 1978: 66).



Hybridity and SE

“The mediation between private and public space, which happens in many different ways, and the mix of resources and logics of action to which it refers, are poorly traduced by representations which suppose well-separated sectors, with clear-cut boundaries.” (Evers, 2004, p. 8)

“SE essentially creates a hybrid organisation, with the ability of the individual entrepreneur to cross or mix a plurality of action principles with a plurality of economic principles.” (Kulothungan 2010).

SE, hybridity and ambivalence

“The SE in the same breath has no possibility to fathom the organisational processes within the municipality and vice versa. This again is a demoralising factor, which in the long run very well may mean that innovative ideas are no longer put forward.”

- Leader of a SE





Conclusions

Silo thinkingBureaucracyMonocultural thinkingHierarchyPower struggle

Innovation ResourcesIsomorphic mechanisms (DiMaggio & Powell)

Thank you.

Questions and reflections



ReferencesBauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press.Billis, D. (2010). From welfare bureaucracies to welfare hybrids. In D. Billis, Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.Defourny, J. (2011). Emerging Models of Social Enterprise: An EMES Perspective. In Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Economy, Solidarity Economy: An EMES Reader on the ’SE Field’. EMES.Defourny, J., Hulgård, L., & Pestoff, V. (2011). Foreword. In Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Economy, Solidarity Economy: An EMES Reader on the ’SE Field’. EMES.Evers, A. (2004). Mixed Welfare Systems and Hybrid Organisations - Changes in the Governance and Provision of Social Services. Paper presented at the sixth ISTR conference at Ryerson and York University, Toronto, Canada.Hannerz, U. (1987). The World in Creolisation. Africa, 57, pp. 546-559.Hannerz, U. (1996). Transnational Connections. London: Routledge.Kulothungan, G. (2010). What do we mean by ‘social enterprise’? Defining social enterprise. In R. Gunn, & C. Durkin, Social entrepreneurship. A skills approach. Bristol: Policy Press.Laville, J.-L. (2011). What is the Third Sector? From the Non-Profit Sector to the Social and Solidarity Economy. Theoretical Debate and European Reality. WP no. 11/01. EMES European Research Network.



Documents

Presentation of PhD project Working title: Organisation, innovation and market strategies in SE-public collaboration. Christian Franklin Svensson, PhD