111 research outputs found
Social enterprises and local government: a scoping study
No full textACELG has released a new scoping study that explores the relationship between social enterprises and local governments.
Entitled Social Enterprises and Local Government: A Scoping Study the paper outlines current knowledge about local governments in Australia and overseas working with social enterprises to achieve collaborative place-based solutions to current challenges facing communities.
The research reviews relevant literature in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK and Europe, and finds that very few studies address the actual or potential relationship between local government and social enterprise. This and other conclusions from the research demonstrate that the social enterprise-local government interaction has great potential and needs to be explored more thoroughly.
The report was prepared by Dr Robyn Eversole and Mary Duniam from the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Regional Development as an ACELG Partnership Research Scheme Project
Social enterprises in rural community development
No full textSocial enterprises are hybrid organizational forms that combine characteristics of for-profit businesses and community sector\ud
organizations. This article explores how rural communities may use\ud
social enterprises to progress local development agendas across both\ud
economic and social domains. Drawing on qualitative case studies of\ud
three social enterprises in rural North West Tasmania, this article\ud
explores the role of social enterprises in local development processes.\ud
The case study social enterprises, despite differences in size, structure,\ud
mission and age, are strongly embedded in their local places and local\ud
communities. As deeply contextualized development actors, these social\ud
enterprises mobilize multiple resources and assets to achieve a range of\ud
local development outcomes, including but not limited to social capita
Empowering Institutions: Indigenous Lessons and Policy Perils
No full textRobyn Eversole explores how indigenous movements see institutional change as key to development and empowerment, examining the recent Bolivian experience. In Bolivia, a country where the majority of citizens are indigenous peoples, there have been significant efforts to re-design governing institutions in more culturally relevant and locally accessible ways. The Bolivian experience shows that institutions can indeed become more participatory, but that the link between institutional change and poverty reduction depends on complex dynamics at both micro and macro scales. Eversole argues that understanding the 'culture' of institutions is central to the quest to empower poor communities
Social enterprise and regional development : a pilot study
No full textThis preliminary study is an early attempt to explicitly explore the role of social enterprises in regional development. Focusing on North West Tasmania, an isolated and predominately rural region, this study examines three social enterprises based in the region and the nature of their social and economic impacts
Measurement as legitimacy versus legitimacy of measures : Performance evaluation of social enterprise
No full textPurpose\ud
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The purpose of this paper is to review the growing emphasis on quantifiable performance measures such as social return on investment (SROI) in third sector organisations – specifically, social enterprise – through a legitimacy theory lens. It then examines what social enterprises value (i.e. consider important) in terms of performance evaluation, using a case study approach. \ud
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Design/methodology/approach\ud
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Case studies involving interviews, documentary analysis, and observation, of three social enterprises at different life-cycle stages with different funding structures, were constructed to consider “what measures matter” from a practitioner's perspective. \ud
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Findings\ud
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Findings highlight a priority on quality outcomes and impacts in primarily qualitative terms to evaluate performance. Further, there is a noticeable lack of emphasis on financial measures other than basic access to financial resources to continue pursuing social goals. \ud
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Social implications\ud
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The practical challenges faced by social enterprises – many of which are small to medium sized – in evaluating performance and by implication organisational legitimacy are contrasted with measures such as SROI which are resource intensive and have inherent methodological limitations. Hence, findings suggest the limited and valuable resources of social enterprises would be better allocated towards documenting the actual outcomes and impacts as a first step, in order to evaluate social and financial performance in terms appropriate to each objective, in order to demonstrate organisational legitimacy. \ud
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Originality/value\ud
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Findings distinguish between processes which may hold symbolic legitimacy for select stakeholder groups, and processes which hold substantive, cognitive legitimacy for stakeholders more broadly, in the under-researched context of social enterprise
Reframing Issues in Rural Development: Women's insights into sustainability and their implications for government
No full textInvisible innovation: Intellectual labour on regional university campuses in Australia
No full textIn Australia, regional university campuses occupy a geographically and institutionally peripheral position in a metrocentric higher education system. We argue that the concentration of research funding and capabilities at metropolitan campuses devalues the intellectual labour of academics working on regional university campuses. The authors use collaborative autoethnography to explore a common theme of ‘gap filling’, that is, mobilising scarce resources to create unique solutions for local issues, and draw on Southern Theory to theorise the implications for our work in the location-based power relations of the Australian knowledge production economy. In this context, we utilise Eversole\u27s concept of ‘invisible innovation’ to theorise how the important place-based knowledge work associated with ‘gap filling’ on regional university campuses is rendered invisible by the metrocentric geopolitics of knowledge production within Australia. The research reveals that the place-based knowledge work of regional academics fills gaps in regional services and resources through innovations largely unrecognised within the higher education system
Creating an Inclusive Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for Women Entrepreneurs in a Rural Region
No full textA growing body of literature seeks to understand the impact of context on entrepreneurship, and how characteristics of particular places can support or impede entrepreneurial ventures. For rural regions, contextual factors such as geography, population density, market size, social environment, and infrastructure influence the nature of entrepreneurial activity (Baumgartner et al., 2013; North and Smallbone, 2006; Smallbone, 2009; Stathopolou et al., 2004; Vaillant and Lafuente, 2007). From a practical perspective, however, we still know little about how to create rural environments that support entrepreneurship.Full Tex
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