Choosing a strategy to scale
As I start year 2 of my PhD, I took some time to reflect on some of my key learnings and insights into the scaling of Social Enterprise. I have read so much this past year and yet there is still so much I don’t know. I’ve been (kindly) told that’s the point of a PhD!
However, what I do have is an immense appreciation for all the academics that have gone before me into unchartered waters and have shared their work and learning so openly. I have a particular appreciation for those authors who write systematic reviews of a topic, so succintly summarising sometimes decades of work. I think it’s the accountant in me that appreciates the thoroughness of it.
One such author is Syrus Islam from Auckland, University of Technology, he has published several really thought-provoking journals over the past couple of years, highlighting challenges and unintended consequences of social enterprise scaling.
One article he published just this past May is particularly interesting: ‘Social impact scaling strategies in social enterprises: A systematic review and research agenda’(Islam 2021)
Figure 1 above is from Islams article, an extremely helpful visual representation of how a social enterprise might scale and the different strategies it might use.
The article quite rightly points out, that a social enterprise will unlikely use just one of the above mentioned strategies but rather a combination of them at different times. I was really (once again) struck by how complex scaling is. How do social enterprises know how to evaluate the opportunity cost of each strategy and when they are appropriate to use? How and where do you learn expertise in these strategies? There is an influx of support actors in the social enterprise sector (with many more good resources freely available online) for social enterprises who want to scale and many are of a very high quality - I have taken part and made great use in ALOT of them - and yet scaling a social enterprise remains so incredibly challenging. How we can adequately equip social enterprises with the roadmap and pathway to increasing their social impact if we take too narrow a view of what ‘success of scaling impact’ looks like.
Looking at the diagram put forward by Islam above, for the most part - I think social enterprises are very aware and actively pursuing ‘organisational growth strategies’ - however it seems (to me) ‘ecosystem growth strategies’ are at the very early stages of development. I’ve read several papers and I’m still not sure I fully understand it! I can understand how each aspect can assist growth and my sense is that they are important, the tide for all social enterprise boats will surely rise through an ecosystem growth. Still, I find the practicalities challenging to get my head around as I’m sure most social entrepreneurs would. One question ‘how can you fund it?’ is ringing in my ears.
I was fortunate to take part in the Irish Academy of Management conference recently and attended a great session ‘Building a better tomorrow - bridging the disconnect between policy, practice, education and research in social enterprise’ which I think is the start of a very interesting conversation. These 4 pillars of - policy, practice, education and research are the key to building strong foundations for long-term success of social enterprises and need to be brought closer together.
As I move into the next stage of my PhD and start to prepare for my field work, I am really excited. It feels like we are at the cusp of something immense for the social enterprise sector in Ireland and I am all for it. The discussion around legal form for social enterprise is continuing, there is certainly no easy answer to this but it is encouraging to see how Québec, Luxembourg and others are navigating it successfully.
Reference: Islam, S. M. (2021). Social impact scaling strategies in social enterprises: A systematic review and research agenda. Australian Journal of Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/03128962211014931