Plymouth has recently been recognised as the UK’s first
Social Enterprise City, building on a vision inspired by a network of social
purpose businesses across the city who, a few years ago, began to ask “What
would it be like if all businesses operated for social purpose?” “What if the
economy of a whole city, country or even the world was dominated by activity
which had social and environmental aims at its core?” This vision, of a world
in which social and environmental benefit and costs are factored into the
business model and where societal and individual wellbeing, fairness and
sustainability are the reasons for going to work, has been championed by
Plymouth’s growing Social
Enterprise Network and is supported by an increasing number of people
and organisations across the city. Plymouth University is a member of that
Network and holds the Social
Enterprise Mark, the only University in the UK to do so.
Social enterprises
are businesses with “primarily social or environmental
objectives, whose surpluses are principally re-invested for that purpose in the
business or community, rather than mainly being paid to shareholders and owners”
(BIS). There are an estimated 70,000 in
the UK, contributing £24bn to the economy and employing about a million people.
It’s a model that is growing fast, with social enterprises more likely than
comparable SMEs to report an increase in turnover last year. All stats are from
the 2013 The People’s Business Report compiled by Social Enterprise UK.
So, what
motivates the social entrepreneurs who choose this business model? What are the
socio-political, fiscal and legislative conditions that encourage social
enterprise development and what are the implications of a social enterprise
economy for global sustainability? These are all questions in need of an
answer.
Zebra Collective is a Plymouth-based social enterprise which
has recently celebrated its tenth birthday. The founding members were, and
still are, motivated by social justice; the desire to challenge inequality and
make a difference in the world. They chose to do this by creating a worker
co-operative which improves lives directly through community development
projects and indirectly by training staff in service-providing organisations.
They describe themselves as a value-driven organisation. Values are complex – they operate at
the boundary between self and society, mediated by both and the interplay
between the two. Two decades of cross-cultural research into human values have
provided us with a good understanding of the patterns they typically take;
patterns which present even more interesting questions in relation to sustainability
and social entrepreneurial motivation.
It seems that the values which are close to each other on the
diagram are complementary and tend be held simultaneously [1]. Values which are on opposing sides are thought of as being in conflict with
each other and are not usually held together. Look at the axis which runs from
social justice, protecting the environment and equality through to social
power, wealth, ambition and influence. Does this mean that people who are
motivated by social justice and sustainability are less likely to be ambitious
and driven? Less likely to be successful? Might that explain a few things about
the multiple social and environmental crises we find ourselves in? Are we
fundamentally predisposed to be motivated either by social good or personal
success, but not both? And if so, what about the very many people, often social
entrepreneurs, who are ambitious, goal oriented, influential and passionate
about social justice? What can their
value orientations tell us that might help in the quest for sustainability? This
is one of the research questions I have been pursuing.
Whilst individual values are relatively stable, changing
little over a lifetime, there is no doubt that they are also culturally
influenced. It has been suggested to me that as society has changed in the
decades since Schwartz did his seminal work, maybe value patterns have altered too.
It was speculated that the rise of individualism and entrepreneurialism (or
maybe the decline of the communist vs capitalist worldview) has caused a subtle
shift in value patterns. This links to another of my earlier questions: What are the cultural,
socio-political, fiscal and legislative conditions that encourage social
enterprise development?
Charles
Leadbeater in his work on co-operation offers some insights in this video and report. In particular, he talks about
altering the structural conditions which “crush” co-operation. These are, quite
possibly, the same structural conditions which institutionalise the values
pattern in the diagram above, amplifying the practical and perceived differences
between self-transcending and self-enhancing values and helping to steer each
of us to make choices between them.
The recent
series of Beyond Capitalism? lectures hosted by Plymouth Business
School (next one on 30th
January 2014) has also kicked off some provocative discussions but there is
much more work to be done.
I suspect
that the phenomenon of social enterprise, currently receiving lots of popular
attention but which, as any passing academic will point out, lacks clear
definition or substantive theoretical underpinning is of value precisely
because it is an anomaly in relation to our current understanding of how
the world works. I wonder whether one day all enterprise will be social
enterprise - combined social, environmental and economic purposes will be the
norm and the aim will be the overall creation of value across these domains. Our
current ideological and institutional bias towards the creation and capture of
economic wealth; and even our belief that this is the best way to generate societal
wellbeing and environmental sustainability may well be concepts that, like
others before them, will one day be resigned to history.
[1] For more on this see e.g. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65
[1] For more on this see e.g. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65
Michelle
Virgo, Researcher for Futures Entrepreneurship Centre, ISSR Management Team and
Social Entrepreneur
