Public Policy for Social Innovations and Social Enterprise—What’s the Problem Represented to Be?

Reviewer’s comments

Authors’ responses

Thank you for your study addressing an interesting topic. I am well aware of the dynamics of the field(s) as well as the Swedish context and thereby familiar to the challenges of ‘bringing in order’ to be able to analyse and present this type of study. I appreciate your efforts and to a large extend also your design.

We are happy to hear that you find our paper interesting with potential to contribute to the journal and the field of study. 

1

I do however, find the paper in need of improvements as for conceptual clarity, sufficient theoretical grounding of the different ‘parts’ of the study, as well as analytic clarity. With ‘parts’ I here refer to Social innovation/Social entrepreneurship/Social enterprises (SI/SE/SE); the two ideal-types of social sustainability; and finally, Bacchi’s policy theory (WPR). I furthermore request some empirical clarifications.

We are grateful for your feedback. We have explained in our point-to-point response how we have met your recommendations and suggestions. 

We have reformulated and created an entirely new structure for section 3 (Methodological framework). The design appears from the revised manuscript

2

You refer to social innovation and social entrepreneurship as a specific policy area (eg. p 2, line 50). What are your grounds for this statement? And how come you exclude social enterprise, even if you alternately refer to social enterprise throughout the text. On p 4, line 195, you even refer to the lack of specific framework/documentation. The most exact reference you make is to the governmental strategy ‘A sustainable society through social enterprise and social innovation’ (p. 4, line 200-). But that strategy highlights social enterprise and social innovation (even though they also refer to social entrepreneurs in the text). The use of these concepts, and the relation between them needs to be further elaborated on.

We are grateful for this comment as it led us to rethink the positioning of our manuscript. We now refer to social innovation and social enterprise as the policy area throughout the manuscript, since this is in line with our theoretical arguments as well as the governmental strategy we refer to.

3

I am happy to see references to the cooperative movement and social enterprises inspired by the same (that is at times left out in in SI/SE/SE discussions), and for highlighting the three pillars (with references to Andersen & Hulgard, p 4). I do however wonder why you leave out the EU Social Business Initiative as you elaborate on policy, which expand (or mess up if one so whish) the third pillar in the ‘cooperative inspired model’. I also recommend you to look into

Nyssens, M. & Defourny, J. 2012, The EMES Approach of Social Enterprise in a Comparative Perspective, EMES working paper, (https://emes.net/content/uploads/publications/EMES-WP-1203_Defourny-Nyssens.pdf)

and

Gawell, M. 2014, Soci(et)al Entrepreneurship and Different Forms of Social Enterprises, in Lundström, A., Zhou, C., von Friedrichs, Y., and Sundin, E. (Eds.), Social Entrepreneurship: Leveraging Economic, Political, and Cultural Dimensions. Springer.

For more typologies over social enterprises that could strengthen your review section.

Thank you very much for pointing this out. We have added a paragraph on the EMES initiative.

4

P 2, line 55: You refer to SI/SE as policy concepts associated with hybridity. ‘They exist in unknow territory… Sorry, but there are hundreds of scholars around the world that study this particular territory! See eg. new publications in Routledge series Social Enterprise in Asia/Eastern Europe/Latin America/ Western Europe https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Social-Enterprise--Social-Innovation/book-series/RSESI.

A good point of view. This can be misunderstood. We mean that development work with social innovations in practical activities (not in research) exist in an unknown territory. We have reformulated this sentence.

5

I agree with you that there has been an increased interest for these concepts also in Swedish politics during the last decades. These different initiatives (apart from the strategy you refer to, eg. the governmental proposition ‘Politics for civil society’, 2009:55 chapter 8, or the governmental action plan for Work integrating social enterprises, N2010/1894/ENT), are all specific policy measurements related to the topic of your paper. But as far as I see it is still doubtful if we can refer to it as a policy area – but streams of policy measures that can be seen as constituting an emerging policy area could be OK. That type of rephrasing would show that the authors of the paper is aware of the specific and current situation.  

This point of view is valuable. Therefore, we follow the advice and reformulate relevant parts in the article regarding that it is an ‘emerging policy field’ and streams of policy measures. We add additional references as suggested on policy initiatives from the government.

6

You might also find some support in the report Gawell, Lindberg, Neubeck 2020, Innovationslab för social inkludering. Erfarenheter från Vinnova-finansierade projekt (http://www.ideellarena.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/innovationslabb-foxxr-social-inkludering.pdf) which is also based on part of the governmental strategy you refer to.

A good suggestion. We have included some aspects (and references) covered in this book. References from the book have been added in the introduction of the article (on societal aspects), in the review of research problems at the concluding parts of section 1, and finally in section 2 (on conceptualizations)

7

Your empirical focus is also somewhat confusing. On p 5, line 2018-225 you refer to a project funded by the national Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (and its commissioned assignment from the governmental strategy on social enterprises and social innovation) in southern part of Sweden. Below, on the same page (line 246-250) you refer to a project funded by the European Regional Development Fund and regional County Council on the west coast. As I read the empirical accounts later on, I assume it is the latter. But please clarify the two claims!

Thank you very much for spotting this issue. The project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with co-financing from the regional County Council. The managing authority tasked to provide information on the ERDF programme, select projects and monitoring implementation is the national Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. We have now clarified these claims in the paper.

8

It is also unclear who organized the policy conference you refer to. Was it a representative from the public policy sphere, or was it a private initiative?

It is a matter of confidentiality. We do not want to reveal the exact organization that organized the conference. It only appears that it is the regional organization. However, we state that all material concerning the preparation of the project can be obtained from the corresponding author.

Comments in detail:

10

P 5, line 248: Landsting (formerly translated to County Council) changed names in 2019 to Regions (and thereby the translation in English to Regions).

Thanks; this has been corrected.

11

P 8, line 130: You refer to ‘policy documents’ and ‘conference document’. What ‘policy documents’ do you refer to here?

We have in the article specified these sources somewhat further (se also point 8 above)

12

P 8, line 352: Please double check sector references. Civil society is also private! See eg. the Welfare triangle in Pestoff 1998, Beyond the Market and State: Social Enterprises and Civil Democracy in a Welfare Society.  

Thanks. We have double-checked the formulations.

13

P 8, line 362: you describe that the conference was the base for continued work to initiate and concretize policy. Who was involved in this? Regional and local public authorities? Private actors drafting a manifest seen as a policy?

Thanks. We have specified this.

14

P 9, line 408: same question, who was involved in drafting the new policy that was initiated?

Thanks. We have specified this.

15

P 15, line 679: Do you know that the original policy ambition was to adopt market mechanisms? If so, how? My experience is that it is much more complicated.

We have slightly changed the meaning of this sentence.

16

P 16, line 700: My experience is that it varies greatly whether political parties has ideas in this field. It seems to be highly individually based. I suggest you try to express yourself a bit more specific. The statement you make here is based on this particular study, right?

We have slightly changed the meaning of this paragraph.

Thank you for your time and expertise. Your comments have been very helpful for guiding us in our efforts to revise the manuscript. With the changes made, we hope you will agree that this paper represents a stronger contribution to the journal.

Reviewer’s comments

Authors’ responses

Very interesting paper on social innovations and social entrepreneurship. However, there are essential weaknesses that need to be addressed.

Thank you for your encouragement. We have worked extensively with strengthening the research/study in line with your recommendations and we are grateful for your valuable guidance in the review process.

1

Abstract: Authors should state their contribution in terms of issue problems solved or ameliorated, theory or policy dilemmas resolved, or the like. Abstract should offer at least one example of a theoretical or managerial implication that authors concluded after their work.

Thank you very much for pointing this out. We have revised the abstract in line with your feedback.

2

1) The introductory/opening section should communicate a little clearer the literature gaps, as well as the study's aims & objectives in order to facilitate the flow of the study.

We have revised the introduction/opening section to make literature gaps and aims clearer. We are grateful for your comment as it has provided us the opportunity to strengthen and clarify the study's aims and objectives in this revised version of the manuscript.

3

Social innovation and social entrepreneurship – concepts and policy area” section needs some theoretical argument.

 Additional references to recent & relevant empirical studies could increase the quality of the research paper and provide a much clearer message to the reader - these may help you building your discussion which needs to be extended. Add the following to your reference list:

 Adeyanju, D., Mburu, J., & Mignouna, D. (2021). Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurship: Assessing the Impact of Agricultural Training Programmes on Performance. Sustainability, 13(4), 1697.

Al-Omoush, K. S., Simón-Moya, V., & Sendra-García, J. (2020). The impact of social capital and collaborative knowledge creation on e-business proactiveness and organizational agility in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 5(4), 279–288.

Alshanty, A. M., & Emeagwali, O. L. (2019). Market-sensing capability, knowledge creation and innovation: The moderating role of entrepreneurial-orientation. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 4(3), 171–178.

García-Jurado, A., Pérez-Barea, J. J., & Nova, R. (2021). A new approach to social entrepreneurship: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sustainability, 13(5), 2754.

Monteiro, A. P., Soares, A. M., & Rua, O. L. (2019). Linking intangible resources and entrepreneurial orientation to export performance: The mediating effect of dynamic capabilities. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 4(3), 179–187.

Ryan, J. C., & Daly, T. M. (2019). Barriers to innovation and knowledge generation: The challenges of conducting business and social research in an emerging country context. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 4(1), 47–54.

Some of the statements you make are entirely obvious and should be supported in the text by these specific references.

Thank you very much for your comments about the section Social innovation and social entrepreneurship – concepts and policy area”. We have carefully read through all the suggested manuscripts and found one of them particularly useful for our paper - the reference to García-Jurado, Pérez-Barea & Nova (2021). Accordingly, we have incorporated this reference into our theoretical arguments.

We did not find any of the other manuscripts addressing issues associated with social innovation/ social enterprise/social entrepreneurship as a policy area, thus we struggled with building our discussion on these sources:

Adeyanju, Mburuv & Mignouna (2021) investigate the impact of the Fadama Graduate Unemployed Youth and Women Support (GUYS) programme on agripreneurship performance in Nigeria.

Alshanty & Emeagwali (2019) examines the nexus between market-sensing capability, knowledge creation, strategic entrepreneurial-orientation and innovation in SMEs operating in Jordan.

Al-Omoush, Simón-Moya & Sendra-García (2020) explore the role of social capital and collaborative knowledge creation in achieving e-business proactiveness in responding to the COVID-19 crisis in pharmaceutical and cleaning materials sectors.

Monteiro, Soares & Rua (2019) investigates the effect of intangible resources and entrepreneurial orientation on export performance in Portuguese exporting companies.

Ryan & Daly (2019) highlights the vital importance of social science research to the social and economic development of the United Arab Emirates while discussing the challenges of new knowledge creation in this context.

We are grateful for your help and guidance in building stronger connection to relevant literature in our manuscript.  We would be more than happy to receive further guidance if we have failed to see relevant connections to social innovation/enterprise as a policy area.

4

At the end of the ´Conclusion´ section, the author should include clear statements as to where research should now go – what are the issues requiring further research and investigation? The author has to suggest challenges and possible new directions for future work. Perhaps: if the results obtained are only studied in the short term, which is then an important bias in analysing the influence further than three years in time and in their influence in the future.  

Per your comment we have included statements about future research at the end of the Conclusion section.

5

4) Carefully check the references, so as to make sure they are all complete and follow the Guidelines to Authors.

We have carefully checked the references so that they follow the Guidelines to Authors.

6

 5) Finally, when you submit the corrected version, please do check thoroughly, in order to avoid grammar, syntax or structure/presentation flaws. Make sure you retain a formal/academic-specific style of presenting your work throughout the text - (if necessary) please seek for professional English proofreading services or ask a native English-speaking colleague of yours in order to refine and improve the English in your paper.

We have in our revision made careful attempts to clarify and improve our communication by avoiding grammar, syntax and structure/presentation flaws. We are grateful for your help in pointing out areas where clarifications and improvements have been necessary.

Thanks for your detailed suggestions. We appreciate the time and effort you have invested in reading and commenting our work.

Reviewer’s comments

Authors’ responses

I found the topic interesting and well developed. Here are some comments that may help improve the paper.

Thank you for your encouraging comments regarding the manuscript.

1

The introduction should start with a discussion of the scope and significance of the issue and or problem. Next, the manuscript needs a review of the literature that should provide the reader with a synthesis of previous work.

A good suggestion. We have revised the introductory part and we have also specified the problem. We have also developed and further synthesized the review of literature in section 2.

2

You can provide more up to date literature in the introduction section, and in the new Literature review section.

Per your comment, we have added additional references both in the introductory part and in the research overview in section 2.

3

I saw some key implications resulted from this study; I recommended the authors to develop the implications, for instance in a sub section of the "Discussion and Conclusions" in a section titled “Implications”

Another good suggestion. We have made several additions to the discussion in the final part and also developed the study's implications regarding the research field (coupled with the initially presented research review). We have finally made further notes on future research. We thank you for pointing us in this direction.

4

I suggest to add some subsections to the "Discussion and Conclusions": Limitations, Implications and Future research

See point 3 above