Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / Social enterprises are nonprofit, for-profit or hybrid organizations that use business methods to create social change (Dees 2007; Light 2005; Martin and Osberg 2007; Neck, Brush, and Allen 2009;). If it succeeds, the social enterprise model could prove to be a viable pathway to greater social justice in an era of decreasing funding for government services and nonprofits (Emerson and Twersky 1996; Harding 2004; Murphy and Coombs 2009; Wilson 2008). However, skeptics worry that the perils of privatization, bottom-line thinking, and deceptive marketing potentially embodied by the “business methods” that social enterprises employ may undermine the potential of this new approach to solving social problems (Bateman and Chang 2012; Farmer 2009; Nega and Schneider 2014). The three articles that make up this dissertation examined the ways social entrepreneurs perceived and managed tensions between social mission and market institutional logics. Their ability (or lack thereof) to reconcile these contradictory imperatives could contribute to whether social enterprises ultimately succeed or fail as vehicles for positive social change. Social Entrepreneurs at the Crossroads: Four Approaches to Responding to Dual Institutional Logics suggests that the widely accepted characterization of social entrepreneurs as compassionate individuals motivated to address intractable social problems innovatively (Alvord, Brown and Letts 2004; Lehner and Germak 2014; Mair and Marti 2006; Miller, Grimes, McMullen and Vogus 2012) is simplistic. From in-depth interviews with twenty (inter)nationally recognized social entrepreneurs I derived four distinct categories: Disillusioned Dreamers, Social Capitalists, Do-Somethings, and Bridgebuilders. Half of these respondents did not perceive tensions between logics; another quarter did not wrestle with the tensions they perceived. Only the Bridgebuilders perceived tensions and then persisted in focusing on both logics and sets of actors to harness synergies. As a result, only Bridgebuilders offer a truly hybrid model for social mission work within the current economic context, whereas the others hew toward a single dominant logic. One Size Does Not Fit All: Legal Form and US WISEs focuses on work integration social enterprises (WISEs), organizations that address the chronic unemployment of marginalized populations. The data demonstrated that contrary to the expectation that WISEs would exemplify “contested” organizations (Besharov and Smith 2014), eight of the ten WISEs studied did not experience significant conflict between social mission and market logics. Rather, WISEs generally had one logic that dominated their operations: a market logic in for-profit WISEs and a social mission logic in nonprofit WISEs. Workers’ employability emerged as an important variable, with for-profit WISEs creating jobs for more employable populations and nonprofits offering job training and “wraparound” services to harder-to-employ populations. Only two WISEs experienced substantial tensions, when social entrepreneurs attempted to prioritize a job training/services mission within a for-profit form. This data demonstrates that a job creation approach aligns best with a for-profit WISE form and a job training/services approach to a nonprofit WISE form. However, neither form has succeeded in creating a system-transforming model that successfully combines revenue generation with a robust training/services/job creation mission. This suggests that breaking traditional nonprofit and for-profit patterns to deliver substantial market and social mission outcomes within a single organization is a significant challenge. Stakeholder Resistance to Social Enterprise Hybridity examines how social entrepreneurs perceive the support of key stakeholders in their attempts to balance competing social mission and market logics. Despite evidence of social interest in ethical capitalism, this data suggests that well-resourced stakeholders push social entrepreneurs to prioritize price, revenue generation, and measurement. This includes both traditional organizational stakeholders and hybrid-specific stakeholders. Customers and clients demanded low prices and high value. Donors demanded quantification and impact measurement. Investors expected market rate financial return. Finally, social enterprise gatekeeper organizations (fellowship granting bodies) were focused on the market logic characteristics of sustainability, scale, and entrepreneurial ability, pushing the field toward market logic modes of operating. Social entrepreneurs generally responded by acquiescing to pressure to emphasize a market logic in their interactions. Counter to current literature that suggests social entrepreneurs should problem-solve to avoid single logic dominance, social entrepreneurs generally allowed price, business strategy, competition and measurement to shape their interactions with stakeholders. Given the importance of stakeholder buy-in for organizational legitimacy, the field of social enterprise needs to find a way to create and capture stakeholder support for dual logics rather than depending on individual social entrepreneurs to withstand the push toward marketization. Overall, despite persistent efforts at creative solutions to social problems by some individuals, the research shows a strong undertow for social enterprises to adopt business logics and business models. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

The field of the social economy and of the work integration social enterprises (WISE) in particular, is for many a more or less unknown area. Unlike ordinary enterprises the WISE's are different due to their aim of integrating disadvantaged people through work. In comparison with other small enterprises earlier research has shown that the WISE's are dealing with challenges regarding recruitment, participation, leadership, sustainable business ideas but above all, the access to funding. The purpose of this essay has therefore been to examine and analyze the financial situation of eight WISE's located in the Stockholm County. The results indicate that half of the enterprises perceive their economic situation as very unstable and as an obstacle to their further development. This perception seems to be more common among the younger enterprises which have not differentiated their businesses activities enough, which results in a greater reliance of the purchases of the public sector. The studied WISE's express a desire to reduce their dependence on the revenues from the public sector by increasing the revenues from other business activities, but this is something that has been proven to be both difficult and time consuming. In line with e.g. age, business maturation, expanded areas of business activities and increased knowledge, more funding opportunities seems to occur. A vast majority of the enterprises have a negative attitude towards external funding in terms of external equity capital, due to its presumable intrusion on the determination of the company. The field which WISE's are operating in is undoubtedly an important socioeconomic area since they react to one of the society’s most prominent problems; people in exclusion and all the problems the exclusion causes. The analysis of the examined enterprise's funding opportunities and its consequences are the main contributions of this essay as well as the further suggestions on how the WISE's financial situation can be improved.

The subject of the thesis is the proposal of the work integration social enterprise (WISE) of NGO SOS Children's villages. Proposal shall take form of a business plan and is based on the needs of the Association to reduce its financial dependence on an external sources of funding. A business plan is a proposal of the concrete WISE which fulfils the function of an alternative financing instrument for the main activities of the Association. The thesis uses the method of SWOT analysis to group and evaluate the available information from the external and internal environment of the WISE as well as uses tools of economic and financial analysis to determine the tipping point and the financial needs for the operation of social enterprise in the first three years of operation. The thesis brings new results and knowledge and proposes a recommendation of how the social enterprise could be realized.

Šímová, Jana. 2015. Sustainability of social enterprises supported by Call no. 30 of the global grant HREOP Social Economy. Diploma Thesis. Prague: Faculty of Humanities, Charles University. The diploma thesis focuses on the sustainability of social enterprises founded by NGOs after the end of their projects supported by the Call no. 30 HREOP "Social Economy". The first part contains the theoretical definition of the concepts of social economy and social entrepreneurship and conception of social enterprise in the Czech environment. More attention is paid to work integration social enterprises. The concept of sustainability of social enterprises is presented from the perspective of international research and also the only one Czech survey on this subject - Evaluation of Supporting Social and Inclusive Entrepreneurship in HREOP. The research examined the ability of 11 work integration social enterprises to operate their business after the end of financial support from HREOP. The research is also analysing other support possibilities for social enterprises. All surveyed enterprises operate after the end of the project and most of them are financially self-sufficient or at least heading to it. They would, however, appreciate further support, ideally in another form than additional grant. There is...

Social economy is a widely discussed topic in the Czech Republic and other states at the moment. This is mainly thanks to its positive impact on the employment of disadvantaged persons and their integration into the society, which is in many cases very difficult and the state fails to provide for it. The support for disadvantaged persons and their entering open job market is still struggling and the tools that the engaged parties try to use do not always work. Social enterprise is one of the possible solutions to this problem. The thesis's theoretical part outlines the topic of social enterprise taking into account both external (legislation, funding, legal forms) and internal (disadvantaged persons employment specifics, organizational culture, employees mentoring and development) factors that affect the way social enterprises work. The practical part uses qualitative research to focus on the opinions of persons with disabilities and executives on the development of social enterprises employees and their possible transfer to the open job market. It summarizes the recommendations for development of their employees' competences so that the system would be as permeable as possible and the employment of the disadvantaged persons as high as possible. Keywords: development of people with disabilities,...

The aim of the present thesis is to study the factors that affect social entrepreneurship from the perspective of the entrepreneur. The initial review provides definition of key terminology and a summary of the development of the concept of social economics, the relation between social entrepreneurship and social politics as well as that of social entrepreneurship and social work, and the specifics of company management in social enterprises. Ultimately, a review of the present state of social entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic is presented. The data for qualitative research was collected during interviews with 12 executives of various social enterprises based in 9 regions of the Czech Republic using the semi-structured interview method. Collected data was analyzed using inductive-deductive analysis. The research focuses on the requirements of providing employment for disadvantaged persons and the prerequisites and drawbacks of running a social enterprise. The research has shown that the main drawbacks of social entrepreneurship include insufficient knowledge of the specifics pertaining to the target group of employees; profit-oriented motivation; insufficient business training; excessive demands on the performance of disadvantaged employees; insufficient skills and working habits on the part...

Social economy is a quickly developing segment of the national economy worldwide. An increasing number of both profit and non-profit organisations in the Czech Republic adhere to the principles of social economy. The legislation for social enterprises has not been drafted yet, which, first, is a drag on the development of social enterprising in the private sector, and, second, hampers its acknowledgement on the part of government institutions which, lacking the legal framework, are not capable of working with this phenomenon. Hence, a legal framework should be the first step towards support to social enterprising, in particular a framework on social integration enterprises employing people with a remarkably restricted access to the labour market. The goal of this thesis is to assess the validity of formerly proposed indicators to identify the characteristic features of social enterprises for the Czech Republic and to present proposals for potential adjustments to them. The thesis also identifies areas in which support to social enterprises is necessary so that they would be able to comply with the individual indicators. Keywords Indicator, people disadvantaged on the labour market, social economy, social enterprise, work integration social enterprise, social entrepreneur.