The social enterprise company in Europe: policy and theory

Abstract

ABSTRACT Corporate organisational constructs facilitating social enterprise have proliferated for the last decade across Europe. This article investigates this phenomenon, and provides an initial analytical framework through which the social enterprise company can be understood, both on its own terms and with respect to the traditional business organisation. The article begins by laying out policymakers' collective intentions for creating the social enterprise company. The discussion then turns to theorising the social enterprise company's organisational architecture. The social enterprise company is a hybrid organisational construct designed to generate social value. For this reason it operates according to the principle of publicness. The intention was also for the social enterprise company to be resource flexible and attract altruistic investors and managers. The article then further extends the theoretical discussion by mapping early stage and later stage investor involvement with reference to the current state of the impact investment landscape, and investigates how these considerations relate to the jurisdictions' isomorphic prevention mechanisms, which encourage impact fidelity in the context of a conversion or a winding up.