The interconnected influences of institutional and social embeddedness on processes of social innovation: A Polanyian perspective

Organisational ambidexterity and social enterprise performance: A Ghanaian perspective

“…This means that the ability of a social enterprise to experiment with novel alternatives to expand product-market knowledge beyond its existing market, technology, and product expertise may improve its chances of increasing volunteer hours from current volunteers, acquiring new donors, and achieving growth in overall donation/volunteer time. Also, a social enterprise's ability to look for novel technological and societal ideas by thinking or cogitating 'outside the box', basing its success on its capability to explore and exploit new technologies and social solutions and searching for creative ways to satisfy its customers or society's needs and wants (Liu et al 2015;Nowak & Raffaelli 2022;Weaver 2020) may indeed enhance its social value creation in terms of serving more poor and needy in the community, providing more social service, expanding social service to diverse locations, and bidding for public service contract.…”

“…for-profit enterprises) (Gottschalck et al 2021;Kafetzopoulos 2020;Santoro, Messeni-Petruzzelli & Del Giudice 2021;Simsek 2009). To this end, we have limited understanding and insight vis-à-vis the applicability of the OA framework in the social enterprise context in emerging economies and the extent to which it influences the performance of these not-for-profit organisations (Nowak & Raffaelli 2022).…”

From ‘Varieties of’ to ‘Variegated’ entrepreneurship: Understanding heterogeneous and interrelated contexts through a Polanyian lens

“…Newly formed SEs often rely upon informal volunteer labour for support, and in developing economies informal collaborative organizations operate outside the formal economy to supplement income and improve living conditions (Defourny and Nyssens, 2014), this is particularly evident in the solidarity economy of Latin American countries (Farías, 2018;Hillenkamp, 2015). SE might fill gaps in social welfare traditionally associated with the state role by drawing on voluntary labour (Nowak & Raffaelli, 2022). Informal support is also evident in the business networks operating in the SME business sector, and that provided by family and friends during start up as explained by Granovetter's Polanyian inspired entrepreneurial network theories (Anderson et al, 2005;Arregle et al, 2015).…”

“…Moreover, government support for market transactions, and government investment in innovation is often hidden (Mazzucato, 2011). Awareness of the structures supporting the social enterprise sector combining market, community reciprocal and government redistributive spheres, enables understanding of how conditions are shifted by political decisions implemented over time (Nowak & Raffaelli, 2022). Moreover, attending to how institutional structures develop over time and in places offers scope to better understand inherent power relations and contestations surrounding entrepreneurship, enabling us to challenge myths of entrepreneurship, for example the assumption that promoting entrepreneurship will create high growth firms that address inequality, create jobs and regenerate regions (Blake & Hanson, 2005;Brown et al, 2017) Given its development within the fields of geography and comparative political economy, the variegated approach offers great potential for examining entrepreneurship in the context of place.…”

“…The multi-scalar potential of a variegated approach points to the multiple institutional levels that entrepreneurs navigated whereby agents interact with institutions at local, regional national and global levels. It brings macro considerations of global economic shifts and national policy change into conversation with micro level processes taking place at the level of the entrepreneur, emphasising how processes shape and adapt to the changing context (Nowak & Raffaelli, 2022). This emphasises the dynamism of entrepreneurship, capturing it as a process contingent upon relations that is situated in and shaped by interrelations with local, regional, national and global institutions that incorporate market, redistributive, community and household logics.…”