What do social enterprises need from the ecosystem?

I am currently writing a piece on how the ecosystem contributes to the scaling of a social enterprise and definitely finding it a super interesting piece of research to focus on. Mostly I find myself pondering many questions and tangling my head up!

What do social enterprises need from the ecosystem? Social enterprises operate slap bang in the middle of commercial and non-profit endeavours, with some veering closer in identification with either of those and yet…there is so much confusion about what a social enterprise is, should be, or indeed is not! Many social enterprises find vital doors closed to them, or feel like they are trapped in a revolving door.

Social enterprises really are having a moment, in 10 years’ time I have no doubt that the space will look entirely different. So many intermediary supports have burst onto the scene. Whilst reading through existing research I came across a really interesting journal that I thought I would briefly share the insights of.

In 2022, Audretsch et al shared some research that looked into what social innovations (or social enterprises) need from an ecosystem and how that differs from a commercially-driven organisation's needs. Building on the research of Isenberg (2011) which outlines the needs of commercial organisations from an ecosystem, Audretsch et al (2022) identified 11 needs of an ecosystem that are specific to social enterprises.

Isenberg (2011)

Firstly, let me briefly touch on the work of Isenberg (2011) who outlined 6 pillars and 13 supporting factors that need to be present within the ecosystem to sustain entrepreneurship. The six pillars are: a conducive culture (Culture); enabling policies and leadership (Policy); availability of appropriate finance (Finance); quality human capital (Human Capital); venture-friendly market for products (Markets) and a range of institutional and infrastructural supports (Supports).

Audtresch et al (2022)

Audretsch et al (2022) revised the work of Isenberg to reflect the needs of social innovation organisations from the ecosystem. Many were similar to the pillars outlined above by Isenberg and similar those required by a commercially driven organisaion, as you would imagine, however, there were 11 additional requirements for social impact-driven organisations listed below:

Whilst this research from Audretsch et al (2022) is pretty new and needs to be built upon, it’s interesting to reflect where we land in terms of existing support and where the gaps in the ecosystem might be. For me, social problem pools are interesting, we need more collaboration - the wicked social problems social enterprises are trying to address won’t be solved by a sole organisation and so we clearly need to work together. There may be many examples of this already in existence in the social enterprise sector, the only one I am familiar with that might be seen as a social pool is CRNI, I’m sure there are likely others - you might let me know of them.

Perhaps we will see an enhanced focus on some of these additional needs emerge from the new social enterprise policy due later in the year.

References:

Audretsch, D. B., Eichler, G. M., & Schwarz, E. J. (2022). Emerging needs of social innovators and social innovation ecosystems. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 18(1), 217–254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-021-00789-9

Isenberg, D. (2011). The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Strategy as a New Paradigm for Economic Policy: Principles for Cultivating Entrepreneurship, the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project. Babson College.