This article explains the implications and benefits of founding transdisciplinary collaborations of knowledge production in critical realism. We call such equal partnerships of researchers and practitioners knowledge alliances. Drawing on the distinction between the referent to which we refer (the object that our research is about) and our references (our research about this object), we show that practitioners can contribute to the process of knowledge production by providing access to referents and producing references but also by achieving societal relevance. In order to accomplish excellence, knowledge production should be organized in ways that engage different types of knowledge in a constructive interplay and use the respective strong points of researchers and practitioners. Abduction and retroduction, two modes of inference vital to critical realism, are particularly inclined to benefit from involving practitioners in knowledge production. We call such an approach potential-oriented and put it in contrast to problem-orientation and the empiricism of evidence-based research and policy-making.

Social entrepreneurship (SE) has become a rapidly advancing domain of enquiry and holds a place in policy makers consideration around the globe. Opportunities have been regarded as critical in SE, but are often portrayed in abstract and unspecified ways. Research on this topic remains relatively scarce, theory building is not yet established and integrated, and the dearth of empirical studies further constrains theoretical development in SE. Researchers have thus called for more exploration and a comprehensive theoretical understanding of SE opportunities. The purpose of this study is to explore SE opportunities through empirical investigation and theoretical development. As an exploratory study, this study addresses two broad research questions: (1) What are SE opportunities? And (2) How do they emerge? To answer these questions, I draw on the broader entrepreneurship literature which provides two main alternative explanations: opportunity discovery (nexus theory) and opportunity creation (effectuation theory). While the discovery/creation debate is still ongoing, recent theoretical advancement has shown a possible path of forwarding entrepreneurial opportunity research, suggesting that research should incorporate structure and agency simultaneously in studying opportunities. Following this path, this study contributes to SE opportunity research by providing a comprehensive understanding of SE opportunities, it also helps address the discovery/creation debate in the context of SE. To make this contribution, this study first adopts critical realism as a research philosophy as well as methodology. Critical realism incorporates the effects of both structure and agency through its ontological assumptions of three domains of reality, while providing an explanatory framework to assess competing theories. Second, this study selects China as a context for empirical study. As a relation-oriented society, China provides a useful context for studying the causal relations between the social structure (guanxi) and SE opportunity. China s institutional context and fast growing social enterprise sector also provides a promising setting for exploratory research on SE opportunities. Based on critical realism, I used a three-step qualitative multi-case study to develop an explanatory framework in which guanxi and social capital theory provide theoretical explanations of the social structure and its causal powers, which lead to SE opportunity emergence in China. Data were collected from 45 interviews with Chinese social entrepreneurs, their employees and other key stakeholders in 36 organisations in Beijing, Hunan Province and Shanghai. My research findings show that SE opportunities develop in all of the three domains defined by critical realism. In the domain of empirical a world of human experience of social events a SE opportunity can be described as discovered, created, or as both discovered and created. In the domain of actual the social events under study a SE opportunity consists of three internal and necessary constituents: unjust social equilibrium (USE), social entrepreneurs beliefs (SEB), and social feasibility (SF). In the domain of real deeper structures, causal powers and mechanism that produce the social event the emergence of SE opportunities can be seen as the result of a resource acquisition and mobilisation mechanism whereby USE, SEB and SF are identified or formed through social entrepreneurs social capital embedded in guanxi. Building on these findings, this study concludes with a theoretical framework that offers a comprehensive explanation of SE opportunity emergence in China. This study is the first attempt to apply critical realism to the study of opportunities in the context of SE in China. It contributes to the SE and general entrepreneurship literature by developing a theoretical framework of SE opportunity emergence that provides an alternative explanation for the existence of discovery and creation opportunities, and by extending our theoretical understandings of some key concepts of SE. This research further provides an example of the use of qualitative methods to apply critical realism in SE and general entrepreneurship research, which contributes to the development of relatively rigorous research design and research methods in studying complex social events.

Managers in social care are being relied upon to lead and implement substantial change within the sector. Yet the prevailing view is that the pressure being put on managers by managerialism and the increase in the business aspects of their role is in conflict with social care managers’ values, causing concern and challenging managers’ identity. Additionally, managers in social care are presented as being part of the same homogenous group as social work managers, a potential misrepresentation, which again has consequences for how managers identify with their role. This study aimed to explore and explain how social care managers are experiencing their manager identity and how they categorise themselves from a group perspective. This research was undertaken using a critical realist philosophical approach. The key theoretical framework used is social identity theory. The study findings have achieved the overall aim of the research, establishing that social care managers appear not to be experiencing any conflict in their identities, that managerialism is accepted by managers and seen to be necessary, and that managers’ values, formed in childhood, are a key aspect of how they undertake their managerial role. In addition, social care managers are not the same as social work managers, their social identity is a synthesis of the multiple groups they are members of with the dominant group being social care, because of this they cannot be viewed as being within the same homogenous group. Neither is the social care manager role distinctive from manager roles in other sectors, however how they undertake the role is. The significance of the study is the contribution to both the existing social care literature and the literature on social identity theory.

My thesis argues that the New Right (NR) sought to manipulate state education as a mechanism of both social transformation and social control in the UK between 1979 and 1992. This is investigated by employing a 'critical realist' perspective which is located within a wider 'neo-Marxist' conceptual frame. The links between the NR and the Radical Right (RR) Conservative governments during this period are investigated through an analysis of the origins, intentions and ascendancy of NR ideology. It is suggested that the NIRIRR's political intent was a 'hegemonic project' to shift underlying moral values from 'social democracy' to the 'social market'. This depended on the successful transmission, through education, of a definition of 'citizenship' grounded in competitive, 'selfish individualism', with the inequalities of the 'social market' accepted as 'common-sense'. My data reveal how the NRJRR conjoined symbolic and material rules and resources to draw power and authority to 'the centre' on the grounds that there was a crisis in national stability and security. Education is identified as a central mechanism in the NR!RR's 'hegemonic project'. It is shown how the RR gained control of the form, content and method of educational provision through a series of initiatives which gradually altered the structure of education and shifted provision progressively from the periphery to the centre, centralising control over curriculum and resources while devolving responsibility and accountability to schools. The argument central to my thesis is that the NR/RR sought to use physical education as a pivotal component of its 'hegemonic project'. This is revealed most clearly in the privileging of the definition of physical education as 'sport and games' in NRJRR discourse. This discourse sought to imbue pupils with values of competition, tradition, reward, meritocracy and individual responsibility: the moral values central to the 'social market'. My data outline how the NRLRR endeavoured to 'control' the 'form', 'structure', 'content' and 'methods' of physical education provision in state schools by delineating the discursive framework and text of the national curriculum physical education (NCPE), and raise critical issues relating to the relationship between policy, power and autonomy within the education system.