Purpose – To study a range of options for providing equity finance (equity capital) in social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The UK government’s keenness for social enterprises to overcome the sector’s cultural aversion to borrowing and seek finance for their activities and...

Purpose – To show how social enterprises can take advantage of the growing ethical awareness of financial institutions to finance their work whilst remaining true to their social principles. Design/methodology/approach – The concept of financial intermediation and the growing ethical...

Purpose – To study the nature of social entrepreneurship from the viewpoint of activities associated with the perception of opportunities to create social value and the creation of social purpose organizations to pursue them. Design/methodology/approach – The ways in which social enterprises...

Purpose – To identify the challenges faced by UK social enterprises in their attempts to develop the kind of support needed to achieve their social, economic and environmental objectives. Design/methodology/approach – The history of social enterprise development in the UK is traced, focusing...

Purpose – To evaluate the potential of social return on investment (SROI) and investment ready tools (IRT) in enabling social enterprises to address the credibility gap associated with their ability to build capacity and to adopt a more commercial/entrepreneurial approach to their activities....

Purpose – To develop and apply the social enterprise balanced scorecard (SEBS) as an amended balanced scorecard technique for use evaluating UK social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The study involved exploring the potential mainstream application of the balanced scorecard in UK...

Purpose – To apply a consumer‐based approach to the study of the underlying concepts involved in social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The report aimed to examine social enterprises from the consumer’s point of view and address the question of how social enterprise can make...

Purpose – To explore the meaning of sustainability from the perspective of community‐based social entrepreneurs (CBSE) on an estate in East London, UK, and enable local practitioners to express their views, and where appropriate, to challenge the values, cultural norms and underlying...

Purpose – To debate some of the commonly;held assumptions about social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – The three main assumptions that are commonly applied to the development and characteristics of social enterprises are discussed, namely: that social enterprise must be a...

Purpose – To study some of the difficulties involved in defining the nature of social enterprises and the environments in which they operate in order to provide a framework to show how and where social enterprises fit in the overall social economy. Design/methodology/approach – The...