Building a new third construction sector through social enterprise

Abstract

Social enterprises are profit-making businesses which trade for a social purpose. They bridge the gap between welfare and work, providing employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups often excluded from employment in the construction industry. Social enterprises are a fast-growing part of a larger third economic sector. However, compared to other industries, there are relatively few social enterprises operating in construction and little is known about the challenges they face in doing so. In-depth interviews at 12 UK social enterprises reveal that many of the challenges faced by social enterprises in the construction industry are similar to those faced by social enterprises operating in other industries. These include: building trust, managing hybridity; securing finance; measuring social impact; and achieving scale. However, in addressing the lack of sector-specific insights in social enterprise research, challenges unique to construction are also identified. These include: procurement practices which favour industry incumbents; costly tender bureaucracy; established supply chain relationships; lack of experience of working with social enterprises; disingenuous corporate social responsibility practices; and fear that social enterprises will reduce competitiveness. Recommendations are made to resolve these challenges, enabling the construction sector to create an ecosystem where social enterprises can thrive. Questions to guide future research into this unexplored area are also proposed.

Creating social value within the delivery of construction projects: the role of lean approach

“…For instance, a purposive search on the term "social value" in the Journal of Construction Management and Economics revealed only 14 papers. Again, this confirms that the concept of social value is still at an infant stage in construction management literature (Loosemore, 2015a;. As a consequence, the search was extended to include government reports, technical reports and website materials on social value.…”

“…is another company that focuses on delivering social value and it has raised over $200 million dollars and built more than 2000 playgrounds (Hammond, 2012). In the UK, Blue Skye Company is committed to delivering social value with a focus on offenders (Loosemore, 2015;2015a).…”

“…For example, the construction industry is the world's largest employer; largest employer of youths and it has the capacity to create local jobs in the communities of operation (Loosemore, 2016a). Despite these opportunities, the concept of social value is yet to receive attention from construction management researchers (Loosemore, 2015a). According to Dreveland and Lohne (2015), lack of clear understanding of value (and its associated concepts such as social value) could make detailed discussion on it difficult, and invariably, its application and practice would be limited.…”

Measurement of Social Effect in Social Entrepreneurial Ventures

“…This is a characteristic error when suspecting that in ordinary organizations, development is connected with an included value, which depicts achieved objectives. The business movement has extensively used measures of effect (execution estimation) including: bookkeeping benefit, income, profit per offer, profit yield [22] and including monetary value [23]. The degree to which social business visionaries may make a generous level of monetary value, likewise these measures must be utilized, yet secondary to the measures used to assess social effect.…”

“…It speaks to the of mixing utilitarian reservations with standardizing stakeholder hypothesisaccept that social effect can be measured considering more noteworthy benefit (arrangement of the social issue) for the more noteworthy number of participants (who can claim consideration and whose issue is illuminated with the social activity executed) in light of the fact that their advantage have inherent value. As indicated by [23] stakeholders' benefits alongside good commitments to them ought to be at the center of corporate procedure.…”