Research expertise. Mike's research interests in Social Enterprise are:(i) Conceptual and practical challenges in the 'business model of social enterprise.(ii) Defining social enterprise.(iii) Ethical Capital.(iv) The Commons. (v) The management practices of social enterprises.(vi) Social value.(vii) Football Address: United Kingdom
This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The pap... more This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The paper draws on the discussions at an event attended by representatives of Local Authorities, consultants, academics and practitioners in Manchester in March 2012 that were invited experts to grapple with the issues for micro (below five full time equivalents) social enterprises in proving their value to stakeholders. The event was entitled, ‘Demonstrating value in chaos’, to stimulate interest in discussing value in the chaos of new markets being shaped, in light of recent government third sector policies and the potential of a much bigger role in the delivery of public services for the third sector. The event sought to go beyond a SROI verses SAA debate, drawing on specific examples of organisations that are utilizing a number of ways of demonstrating value. The research was part of an ESRC funded Business Placement Scheme project in which the authors worked in partnership with Community Catalysts CIC, a social enterprise that supports microproviders and assists local authorities in stimulating enterprise. Community Catalysts is under pressure to evidence the impact of micro-providers in the personalisation of adult social care. Yet this paper extends beyond personalisation in grappling with the issues for wider social enterprise/third sector micro-enterprises. The paper is qualitative in nature and sits within a focus group methodology. This relied on copious note taking and other forms of evidence gathered during the event, which included participants taking part in activities with stickers, post it’s and stimulated debates. Four of the co-authors were deployed on the day to capture as much as they could of the discussions. The discussion threads presented in this paper are both a mix of pre-designed topics and more grounded topics that surfaced on the day. The cryptic inclusion in the title of the paper of the elephant in the room, was a drawing captured from one participant during the day in an analogy of the recent and potentially game changing Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 that recently went through UK parliament, which is discussed from participant perceptions in the paper. The paper is shaped around social impact tools and micro-enterprises, including an example of how a Local Authority supported a micro social enterprise through an SROI audit and the learning that came out of that journey. The findings are context specific in nature and are indicative of the threads of discussions that took paths as they did on the day. Some themes we recognise from the literature as we seek to gather and draw some implications and conclusions from what was a thought provoking and reflective day with experts at the forefront of this subject
In this article, we trace a rising tide of criticality to highlight three waves in a sea of socia... more In this article, we trace a rising tide of criticality to highlight three waves in a sea of social entrepreneurship/social innovation (SE/SI) research. Our aim is to draw attention to counter, alternative and critical perspectives in the field and how ‘dangerous’ their co-option by right wing narratives is. We review what we believe to be three waves in the development of a critical research agenda undertaken by a cohort of academics who, in their loyalty to the field, have sought to unpick the underlying assumptions in the practice of, and academic reflection on, social innovation. We set out the early instrumentalist critique, in which the success and social utility of SE/SI is questioned. We secondly highlight a post-structuralist shift, in which hidden and unheard voices and perspectives are welcomed and celebrated. The third wave, for us, constitutes a dangerous threat to the SE/SI project, threatening to undermine and co-opt the first two waves, as has happened in other relate...
Social enterprise is an 'emerging' research paradigm, yet it is not an entirely new pheno... more Social enterprise is an 'emerging' research paradigm, yet it is not an entirely new phenomenon. There are calls from academics, policy makers and practitioners for greater understanding of the organisational models and business practices of social enterprises which this research thesis aims to contribute to. This thesis is based on a selection of my previously published research in the field of social enterprise. The eight publications selected have contributed to knowledge about both operational concepts and the theory building of social enterprise in the UK. My research in this subject area began in 2004 at a time when the concept of social enterprise was in its infancy. The fieldwork was conducted between 2004 and 2007. The publications based on the fieldwork span from 2006 to 2014. I begin this thesis with a contextual commentary on the field of research. The commentary charts theoretical conceptualisations of social enterprise. I map out how my research links to the bro...
This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The pap... more This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The paper draws on the discussions at an event attended by representatives of Local Authorities, consultants, academics and practitioners in Manchester in March 2012 that were invited experts to grapple with the issues for micro (below five full time equivalents) social enterprises in proving their value to stakeholders. The event was entitled, ‘Demonstrating value in chaos’, to stimulate interest in discussing value in the chaos of new markets being shaped, in light of recent government third sector policies and the potential of a much bigger role in the delivery of public services for the third sector. The event sought to go beyond a SROI verses SAA debate, drawing on specific examples of organisations that are utilizing a number of ways of demonstrating value. The research was part of an ESRC funded Business Placement Scheme project in which the authors worked in partnership with Community Catalysts CIC, a social enterprise that supports microproviders and assists local authorities in stimulating enterprise. Community Catalysts is under pressure to evidence the impact of micro-providers in the personalisation of adult social care. Yet this paper extends beyond personalisation in grappling with the issues for wider social enterprise/third sector micro-enterprises. The paper is qualitative in nature and sits within a focus group methodology. This relied on copious note taking and other forms of evidence gathered during the event, which included participants taking part in activities with stickers, post it’s and stimulated debates. Four of the co-authors were deployed on the day to capture as much as they could of the discussions. The discussion threads presented in this paper are both a mix of pre-designed topics and more grounded topics that surfaced on the day. The cryptic inclusion in the title of the paper of the elephant in the room, was a drawing captured from one participant during the day in an analogy of the recent and potentially game changing Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 that recently went through UK parliament, which is discussed from participant perceptions in the paper.
Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to highlight the complexities involved in conducting ... more Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to highlight the complexities involved in conducting a social return on investment (SROI) forecast in a small social enterprise, The Wooden Canal Boat Society. Design/methodology/approach – This SROI forecast was a collaborative exercise between Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and the Wooden Canal Boat Society. A case study methodology has been adopted in order to allow the voice of the first author, from the Local Authority, to come through. Findings – The findings highlight that the process of scoping; gathering and analysing information; engaging with stakeholders and assigning evidence against proxies (London centric) is challenging and exhausting, yet it provides a rich learning experience for all those involved. The accuracy of the ratio is compromised and implicated by the time and resources that are available to invest the subjectivity of the data behind the ratio the judgements and decisions over who and how to include/exclu...
This Thematic Issue seeks to explore critical perspectives of an international nature on social i... more This Thematic Issue seeks to explore critical perspectives of an international nature on social innovation (SI), social enterprise (SE) and/or social solidarity economy (SSE). The aim is to examine the grand narrative, explore the ontological assumptions of the field, challenge the normative and present alternatives that draw attention to political economy, critical theory and critical management studies.Critical perspectives emerged in social innovation (SI) literature as a concerted effort sometime in 2008. A few voices sounded from the edges of the field much earlier. Ash Amin, Professor of Geography at Durham University, inspected the new favourite of public policy way back in 2002, discarded it as a “a poor substitute for a welfare state” and never returned to the subject. There were heated debates that challenged the grand narrative of SI at the International Social Innovation Research Conferences (ISIRC) (once called the Social Enterprise Research Conference before becoming ISIRC with the involvement of the social innovation theme from Skoll Centre). The Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) conferences picked away at the promise of unlimited performance and achievement of the upstart SE in a mature voluntary and charity network (Aiken, 2002, 2006, 2007; Grenier, 2009; Pharaoh, Scott & Fisher, 2004). Still, on the whole, the literature in the last twenty years has been overwhelmingly interested in promoting social enterprise (SE) and SI as (a) an inherently good thing, (b) a solution to all problems and (c) a politically neutral complement to neo-liberal economics globally.Through 2005-2008, a handful of academics were beginning to make concerted inroads from within the SE field that challenged the superpowers gifted to the SE/SI rhetoric. First through conference presentations, in particular in 2006, a 1-day seminar at Manchester Metropolitan University, ‘Critical Perspectives on Social Enterprise’, followed by a Special Issue in International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research (Bull, 2008). Later individual publications developed the critical themes in different directions (Seanor et al., 2013; Curtis, 2008; Curtis et al., 2010; Grant, 2008; Scott-Cato et al., 2008; Scott & Hillier, 2010; Jones et al., 2008a, Betta et al., 2010; Bull & Ridley-Duff, 2019; Ridley-Duff & Bull, 2021), each skirting around the issue of critical theory and focussing on finding the ‘social’ in SE, but not addressing critical theory head-on.Then at the 2010 Skoll Centre Research Colloquium on Social Entrepreneurship at the Said Business School, Oxford, Pascal Dey of University Applied Science, Northwestern, Switzerland burst on to the scene, wowing the gathered crowd with the lucidity of his paper (Dey, 2010), on the symbolic violence in social entrepreneurship discourse. Critical theory had come of age, moving away from the functional critiques (SEs don’t do what they claim) and territorial debates (SEs are businesses in disguise or charities do this anyway) to a more theoretically informed investigation, deliberately working from and with critical theory. Steyaert and Dey (2010) followed this up, in the first edition of the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, with a mature call to keep social enterprise research ‘dangerous’.Since then, critical perspectives on SI have widened and diversified with critical perspectives tracks in EMES International Research Network, ISIRC and other SI related conferences as well as an increasing number of PhD and early career researchers adopting a critical lens in studying SI’. Whilst ‘ordinary’ critical thinking might be described as an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences (Glaser 1941). However, the critical perspectives we are seeking to develop in this Thematic Issue are best described by Horkheimer (1982), whereby we question the facts which our senses present to us as socially performed approaches to understanding in the social sciences. We should start with an understanding of a "social" experience itself as always fashioned by ideas that are in the researchers themselves. The project of a critical perspective is also “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Horkheimer 1982, p244), not merely to describe the functions of those circumstances.Until the late nineteenth century, SI was understood to be subversive of the social order (Sargant, 1858), but in the French milieu was a ‘happy innovation’ of social progress (Comte 1841). What seems to have occurred in the research and publications in critical perspectives on social innovation over the last decade is as threefold engagement with epistemological issues, a drawing on theoretical insights from popular critical theory thinkers and challenges to normative methodological strategies in research. However, there seems to be a dearth of challenges to ontological assumptions (Hu…
Schumpeter suggests that the role of the entrepreneur is to create greater value. This paper focu... more Schumpeter suggests that the role of the entrepreneur is to create greater value. This paper focuses on football, and football club owners in questioning and contesting not just if club owners create value – but more specifically, value for whom? And at what cost? The questions bring to the fore commodification and a profit maxim versus community asset and a utility maxim. We question the current pursuit of football clubs where owners have sidelined the indigenous fan base to satisfy their thirst for global market growth, at the expense of heritage and social value of the ‘club’. There have been various critical papers written on the subject of the changing nature of professional football, however, little has been written on this topic from a social value perspective. Therefore, whilst focussing on football club owners, our research questions commodification of public utility in the pursuit of globalisation through the commercialisation of clubs and the capitalisation of supporters ...
This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's ve... more This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version
This paper is about evidencing the social value of co-produced public services. We use Mary Dougl... more This paper is about evidencing the social value of co-produced public services. We use Mary Douglas's theory of cultural variation to frame conflicting assumptions about what kinds of information c...
This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The pap... more This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The paper draws on the discussions at an event attended by representatives of Local Authorities, consultants, academics and practitioners in Manchester in March 2012 that were invited experts to grapple with the issues for micro (below five full time equivalents) social enterprises in proving their value to stakeholders. The event was entitled, ‘Demonstrating value in chaos’, to stimulate interest in discussing value in the chaos of new markets being shaped, in light of recent government third sector policies and the potential of a much bigger role in the delivery of public services for the third sector. The event sought to go beyond a SROI verses SAA debate, drawing on specific examples of organisations that are utilizing a number of ways of demonstrating value. The research was part of an ESRC funded Business Placement Scheme project in which the authors worked in partnership with Community Catalysts CIC, a social enterprise that supports microproviders and assists local authorities in stimulating enterprise. Community Catalysts is under pressure to evidence the impact of micro-providers in the personalisation of adult social care. Yet this paper extends beyond personalisation in grappling with the issues for wider social enterprise/third sector micro-enterprises. The paper is qualitative in nature and sits within a focus group methodology. This relied on copious note taking and other forms of evidence gathered during the event, which included participants taking part in activities with stickers, post it’s and stimulated debates. Four of the co-authors were deployed on the day to capture as much as they could of the discussions. The discussion threads presented in this paper are both a mix of pre-designed topics and more grounded topics that surfaced on the day. The cryptic inclusion in the title of the paper of the elephant in the room, was a drawing captured from one participant during the day in an analogy of the recent and potentially game changing Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 that recently went through UK parliament, which is discussed from participant perceptions in the paper. The paper is shaped around social impact tools and micro-enterprises, including an example of how a Local Authority supported a micro social enterprise through an SROI audit and the learning that came out of that journey. The findings are context specific in nature and are indicative of the threads of discussions that took paths as they did on the day. Some themes we recognise from the literature as we seek to gather and draw some implications and conclusions from what was a thought provoking and reflective day with experts at the forefront of this subject
In this article, we trace a rising tide of criticality to highlight three waves in a sea of socia... more In this article, we trace a rising tide of criticality to highlight three waves in a sea of social entrepreneurship/social innovation (SE/SI) research. Our aim is to draw attention to counter, alternative and critical perspectives in the field and how ‘dangerous’ their co-option by right wing narratives is. We review what we believe to be three waves in the development of a critical research agenda undertaken by a cohort of academics who, in their loyalty to the field, have sought to unpick the underlying assumptions in the practice of, and academic reflection on, social innovation. We set out the early instrumentalist critique, in which the success and social utility of SE/SI is questioned. We secondly highlight a post-structuralist shift, in which hidden and unheard voices and perspectives are welcomed and celebrated. The third wave, for us, constitutes a dangerous threat to the SE/SI project, threatening to undermine and co-opt the first two waves, as has happened in other relate...
Social enterprise is an 'emerging' research paradigm, yet it is not an entirely new pheno... more Social enterprise is an 'emerging' research paradigm, yet it is not an entirely new phenomenon. There are calls from academics, policy makers and practitioners for greater understanding of the organisational models and business practices of social enterprises which this research thesis aims to contribute to. This thesis is based on a selection of my previously published research in the field of social enterprise. The eight publications selected have contributed to knowledge about both operational concepts and the theory building of social enterprise in the UK. My research in this subject area began in 2004 at a time when the concept of social enterprise was in its infancy. The fieldwork was conducted between 2004 and 2007. The publications based on the fieldwork span from 2006 to 2014. I begin this thesis with a contextual commentary on the field of research. The commentary charts theoretical conceptualisations of social enterprise. I map out how my research links to the bro...
This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The pap... more This paper discusses issues and challenges of proving impact of micro social enterprises. The paper draws on the discussions at an event attended by representatives of Local Authorities, consultants, academics and practitioners in Manchester in March 2012 that were invited experts to grapple with the issues for micro (below five full time equivalents) social enterprises in proving their value to stakeholders. The event was entitled, ‘Demonstrating value in chaos’, to stimulate interest in discussing value in the chaos of new markets being shaped, in light of recent government third sector policies and the potential of a much bigger role in the delivery of public services for the third sector. The event sought to go beyond a SROI verses SAA debate, drawing on specific examples of organisations that are utilizing a number of ways of demonstrating value. The research was part of an ESRC funded Business Placement Scheme project in which the authors worked in partnership with Community Catalysts CIC, a social enterprise that supports microproviders and assists local authorities in stimulating enterprise. Community Catalysts is under pressure to evidence the impact of micro-providers in the personalisation of adult social care. Yet this paper extends beyond personalisation in grappling with the issues for wider social enterprise/third sector micro-enterprises. The paper is qualitative in nature and sits within a focus group methodology. This relied on copious note taking and other forms of evidence gathered during the event, which included participants taking part in activities with stickers, post it’s and stimulated debates. Four of the co-authors were deployed on the day to capture as much as they could of the discussions. The discussion threads presented in this paper are both a mix of pre-designed topics and more grounded topics that surfaced on the day. The cryptic inclusion in the title of the paper of the elephant in the room, was a drawing captured from one participant during the day in an analogy of the recent and potentially game changing Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 that recently went through UK parliament, which is discussed from participant perceptions in the paper.
Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to highlight the complexities involved in conducting ... more Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to highlight the complexities involved in conducting a social return on investment (SROI) forecast in a small social enterprise, The Wooden Canal Boat Society. Design/methodology/approach – This SROI forecast was a collaborative exercise between Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and the Wooden Canal Boat Society. A case study methodology has been adopted in order to allow the voice of the first author, from the Local Authority, to come through. Findings – The findings highlight that the process of scoping; gathering and analysing information; engaging with stakeholders and assigning evidence against proxies (London centric) is challenging and exhausting, yet it provides a rich learning experience for all those involved. The accuracy of the ratio is compromised and implicated by the time and resources that are available to invest the subjectivity of the data behind the ratio the judgements and decisions over who and how to include/exclu...
This Thematic Issue seeks to explore critical perspectives of an international nature on social i... more This Thematic Issue seeks to explore critical perspectives of an international nature on social innovation (SI), social enterprise (SE) and/or social solidarity economy (SSE). The aim is to examine the grand narrative, explore the ontological assumptions of the field, challenge the normative and present alternatives that draw attention to political economy, critical theory and critical management studies.Critical perspectives emerged in social innovation (SI) literature as a concerted effort sometime in 2008. A few voices sounded from the edges of the field much earlier. Ash Amin, Professor of Geography at Durham University, inspected the new favourite of public policy way back in 2002, discarded it as a “a poor substitute for a welfare state” and never returned to the subject. There were heated debates that challenged the grand narrative of SI at the International Social Innovation Research Conferences (ISIRC) (once called the Social Enterprise Research Conference before becoming ISIRC with the involvement of the social innovation theme from Skoll Centre). The Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) conferences picked away at the promise of unlimited performance and achievement of the upstart SE in a mature voluntary and charity network (Aiken, 2002, 2006, 2007; Grenier, 2009; Pharaoh, Scott & Fisher, 2004). Still, on the whole, the literature in the last twenty years has been overwhelmingly interested in promoting social enterprise (SE) and SI as (a) an inherently good thing, (b) a solution to all problems and (c) a politically neutral complement to neo-liberal economics globally.Through 2005-2008, a handful of academics were beginning to make concerted inroads from within the SE field that challenged the superpowers gifted to the SE/SI rhetoric. First through conference presentations, in particular in 2006, a 1-day seminar at Manchester Metropolitan University, ‘Critical Perspectives on Social Enterprise’, followed by a Special Issue in International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research (Bull, 2008). Later individual publications developed the critical themes in different directions (Seanor et al., 2013; Curtis, 2008; Curtis et al., 2010; Grant, 2008; Scott-Cato et al., 2008; Scott & Hillier, 2010; Jones et al., 2008a, Betta et al., 2010; Bull & Ridley-Duff, 2019; Ridley-Duff & Bull, 2021), each skirting around the issue of critical theory and focussing on finding the ‘social’ in SE, but not addressing critical theory head-on.Then at the 2010 Skoll Centre Research Colloquium on Social Entrepreneurship at the Said Business School, Oxford, Pascal Dey of University Applied Science, Northwestern, Switzerland burst on to the scene, wowing the gathered crowd with the lucidity of his paper (Dey, 2010), on the symbolic violence in social entrepreneurship discourse. Critical theory had come of age, moving away from the functional critiques (SEs don’t do what they claim) and territorial debates (SEs are businesses in disguise or charities do this anyway) to a more theoretically informed investigation, deliberately working from and with critical theory. Steyaert and Dey (2010) followed this up, in the first edition of the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, with a mature call to keep social enterprise research ‘dangerous’.Since then, critical perspectives on SI have widened and diversified with critical perspectives tracks in EMES International Research Network, ISIRC and other SI related conferences as well as an increasing number of PhD and early career researchers adopting a critical lens in studying SI’. Whilst ‘ordinary’ critical thinking might be described as an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences (Glaser 1941). However, the critical perspectives we are seeking to develop in this Thematic Issue are best described by Horkheimer (1982), whereby we question the facts which our senses present to us as socially performed approaches to understanding in the social sciences. We should start with an understanding of a "social" experience itself as always fashioned by ideas that are in the researchers themselves. The project of a critical perspective is also “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them” (Horkheimer 1982, p244), not merely to describe the functions of those circumstances.Until the late nineteenth century, SI was understood to be subversive of the social order (Sargant, 1858), but in the French milieu was a ‘happy innovation’ of social progress (Comte 1841). What seems to have occurred in the research and publications in critical perspectives on social innovation over the last decade is as threefold engagement with epistemological issues, a drawing on theoretical insights from popular critical theory thinkers and challenges to normative methodological strategies in research. However, there seems to be a dearth of challenges to ontological assumptions (Hu…
Schumpeter suggests that the role of the entrepreneur is to create greater value. This paper focu... more Schumpeter suggests that the role of the entrepreneur is to create greater value. This paper focuses on football, and football club owners in questioning and contesting not just if club owners create value – but more specifically, value for whom? And at what cost? The questions bring to the fore commodification and a profit maxim versus community asset and a utility maxim. We question the current pursuit of football clubs where owners have sidelined the indigenous fan base to satisfy their thirst for global market growth, at the expense of heritage and social value of the ‘club’. There have been various critical papers written on the subject of the changing nature of professional football, however, little has been written on this topic from a social value perspective. Therefore, whilst focussing on football club owners, our research questions commodification of public utility in the pursuit of globalisation through the commercialisation of clubs and the capitalisation of supporters ...
This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's ve... more This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version
This paper is about evidencing the social value of co-produced public services. We use Mary Dougl... more This paper is about evidencing the social value of co-produced public services. We use Mary Douglas's theory of cultural variation to frame conflicting assumptions about what kinds of information c...
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