A comparative overview of social enterprise ‘ecosystems’ in Scotland and England: an evolutionary perspective

Abstract

Social enterprise has been identified as a culturally and socially constructed phenomenon that varies in its meaning both internationally and within geographic regions. Over recent years there has been increasing academic focus on how social enterprise ecosystems differ across different countries. This focus has been both global (examinations of differences between North American, Asian and European social enterprise) and regional (exploring differences between countries within Europe). There has however, been less focus on the differences in social enterprise ecosystems within countries, where subtle regional differences in the cultural, political and social environment can potentially lead to significant variations in the environment for support. The recent history of the United Kingdom, with devolution for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, has led to all four countries (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England) developing fairly diverse political and policy environments despite sharing relatively similar social and cultural backgrounds. This paper seeks to explore this through the lens of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory posits that within an ecosystem all organisms are a product of the evolution of that ecosystem, and that this evolution is based upon genetics, epigenetics and phenotypes. The research reported in this paper draws upon qualitative data gathered as part of a European Commission FP7 project. Semistructured interviews explored the perceptions of a variety of key stakeholders in regards to the historical, socio-political, cultural and regulatory environments, at both local authority/city (either not both) and national levels, in Scotland and England. The results are discussed in relation to evolutionary theory and how socio-political and regulatory differences can lead to the rapid divergence of social enterprise ecosystems.

From Policy to Practice: Exploring Practitioners’ Perspectives on Social Enterprise Policy Claims

“…While the Scottish Government has openly and emphatically publicly endorsed social enterprise and has also made considerable investment into the sector, whether this support translates into practice requires further examination. If there is a particularly enabling social enterprise 'ecosystem' (Hazenberg et al 2016) …”

The role of institutional and stakeholder networks in shaping social enterprise ecosystems in Europe

“…The use and conceptualisation of 'ecosystems' in social enterprise research is not new and has been used in the past in several studies (Arthur et al, 2006;Grassl, 2012;Roy et al, 2015;Hazenberg et al, 2016). Evolutionary theory states that variation in species (in this case social enterprise) occurs due to three main factors: genetic variation, which is random, where new forms appear and their survival is dependent on how well their random changes are suited to the current environment; phenotypes, where environmental factors lead to variations in traits/behaviours and hence species; and epigenetics, where experience/environmental factors alter an organisms genetic coding leading to changes (During, 2014).…”

“…Figure 1 illustrates this theoretical model. (Hazenberg et al, 2016) Social enterprise, it could be argued, could be considered as a new sub-species of enterprise that has emerged over the last few decades from a variety of historical organisational ancestors, competing for survival in the turmoil of the socio-economic system (During, Van Dam and Salverda, 2016). However, while prior research has sought to theorise social enterprise ecosystems in this way, by necessity, the crucial role of human beings within such a social system has been over-simplified.…”

“…In essence this means that the interaction between organisms and their environments is a two-way process. Hazenberg et al (2016) employed evolutionary theory to explore the development (and ongoing divergence) of the Scottish and English social enterprise ecosystems. Within this context, it was identified that 'genetic' and 'epigenetic' factors were responsible for the emergence of different dominant phenotypes in both countries, with Scottish social enterprises typifying the 'community enterprise' (collective/social) type and English social enterprises typifying the 'social business' (economic/individualistic) type (see Teasdale et al 2012).…”

“…In particular, geographical differences between regions can exist based upon the socio-economic and cultural contexts that exist within different regions of the world (Doherty et al, 2009) and these can be differentiated between developed and developing/transition economies and the differing socio-political clusters that exist within these [see Salamon et al, 2003) and Doherty et al, 2009) for a detailed description of these different clusters]. This paper draws upon prior research, which presented a theoretical framework for the emergence of the social enterprise ecosystems based upon metaphors drawn from biological evolutionary theory, in which an explanation for how the English and Scottish social enterprise ecosystems have developed differently over time due to varying historical (genetic) and institutional/environmental (epigenetic) factors (see Hazenberg et al 2016). This paper seeks to extend this research by practically applying the theory to the development of stakeholder and institutional networks across Europe and how they shape the different social enterprise ecosystems.…”