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 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...

Purpose – To explore what type of support is required by social enterprises, how this is different from mainstream business, what the preferred approaches to learning and working with support providers are, and how the provision of social enterprise support can be co‐ordinated and the...

Purpose – To report the findings of a European Social Fund (ESF) financed study into the investigation and development of business practices and managerial skills in the social enterprises sector. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative and grounded research investigation was conducted...

Purpose – To study the applicability of capacity building as a technique for developing social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – Two emerging social enterprises, developed within the WestFocus Partnership, a consortium of seven higher education institutions, were studied in a series...