My name is Rory Ridley-Duff.  I will be presenting a section of the ‘Social Entrepreneurial Mindset’ theme of the seminar day and wanted to contribute to a debate about the respective roles of employee-owned organisations, co-operatives, charities and voluntary groups to the social enterprise movement.

There is considerable irony (for me personally) that the employee-ownership sector, despite active involvement in the formation of both Social Enterprise London and the Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC), has been marginalised in social enterprise policy. The recent
“All Party Parliamentary Report on Employee Ownership” makes this clear in repeated pleas for political recognition “comparable” to the social enterprise sector (as if it has somehow left the movement).  I was surprised, therefore, that after the event the Chair of the Employee Ownership Association (EOA), Patrick Burns, felt that most members of their association did not feel part of the movement (despite the EOA itself being a member of the SEC).

Anyone who has participated in, or provided business support to, employee-owned / co-operative organisations cannot fail to experience and recognise the ’social’ element of their enterprise orientation.  As Rob Paton and Roger Spear documented in the late 1980s (Reluctant Entrepreneurs, from the OU), the transition to worker ownership represents an enormous learning curve for trade unions, workers, managers, suppliers, customers (and in some cases receivers) as social relations are restructured to support workplace democracy and stronger links to the local community.

There are two constructive roles that such organisations can play.  In Spain, for example, the ‘for-profit’ co-operatives that produce industrial and consumer goods provide most of the financial capital for the secondary co-operatives offering education, housing and welfare benefits.  Secondly, viable models of workplace democracy are vital as learning grounds for inclusive management and decision-making processes.

At Mondragon, one of the most successful co-operatives in Spain – if not in the entire world – they run regular and accessible seminars (at low cost) for people wishing to learn about their approach.  If we are to apply ‘business’ practices to social enterprise, why not draw those practices from businesses that promote democracy?

My biggest concern is that marginalising the members of the EAO will leave social enterprises over dependant on state funds and philanthropy. Both these funders tend to impose top-down board-driven governance models rather than democratic self-management.  As Alibeth Sommers argued at the Social Entrepreneurship Research Conference in 2007, existing government policy toward social enterprise is about the expansion, not the contraction, of state influence.  As I further argued in Corporate Governance (2007), policy for the CIC was skewed in favour of the interests of charitable trusts and the government, not the promotion of democratic forms of ownership and control.

What are your thoughts on the way the social enterprise movement, charities and non-profit social enterprises, should develop links with profit-making employee-owned businesses and co-operatives?

Gladius Kulothungan

Two years ago in June I was attending the Social Enterprise Research Conference at the London South Bank University and during the morning break on day 1 (yes, these things run for more than one day!)

I ran into Zoe Portlock who was just finishing the B.A Social Enterprise course we run. I asked her how she found the proceedings and she took about a whole minute to answer, “ Hmm…….interesting!”.  Now I knew Zoe to be a very smart, intelligent and knowledgeable individual already leading a community project that trains disabled persons for employment in East London called The Tower Project and hearing her speaking in mono syllables about social enterprise research today got me thinking.

The next day I asked her what she found particularly interesting at the conference and what she said was a kind of a revelation to me. She said “ I don’t know how much of all they discuss here has a direct relevance for practitioners in the field”.

Peter Watherston, the founder of First Fruit, a social enterprise in East London, echoed the same sentiments when he once told me, “I avoid these academic discourses on social entrepreneurship because I am not able see the whole point of these exercises”.

For me, who is at a mid way point between practice and studying practice – I used to run social enterprises but research them now as well teach about them – these responses were indicative of a possible gulf between the world of the practitioner and the universe of the researchers in the social enterprise sector.

Being part of the Centre for Institutional Studies, at the University of East London, that tries to look at how institutions today try to address social problems, I thought of the idea of having the practitioner take centre stage and making their concerns and issues the focus of attention for academics, policy makers and network organisations was not only timely but important as well. This whole conference has developed from that simple idea when we were able to get together three other practitioners to shape the idea further.

The success or otherwise of the conference is in the hands of all of you I guess!

After a very long break we are back – and we have a very interesting month planned here at the For More Than Profit blog.

At The Tool Factory we are working with the Centre for Institutional Studies at the University of East London and the Social Enterprise Coalition on the Listening to Social Entrepreneurs event on Thursday 9th October – a conference for social entrepreneurs, researchers and policy makers.

Academics and policy makers have had a lot to say about social enterprises and social entrepreneurs in recent years and a lot of it has been very interesting. However, the traditional approach has been for researchers to choose their topics based on their own interests rather than what the social entrepreneurs are saying they need.

Those of us arranging the conference think it is time that the voice of the practitioners themselves are listened to – their challenges, concerns and opportunities and that the research and policy agenda is built out of that; not the other way round.

I am a practitioner – I run my own social enterprise developing software for social entrepreneurs (The Tool Factory); but I also spend a bit of time in the academic side of life – teaching at the University of East London where I am also doing my Phd on social enterprise. I wouldn’t call myself a researcher or an academic – I’m a practitioner doing research, and sometimes I get lost in the language and the thinking done by the academics and policy makers. All I really want to know is how the work they have been doing will help me and my social enterprise.

That is why I am so excited about the Listening the Social Entrepreneur event – getting practitioners together with researchers and policy makers and creating an environment where they can hear what each other are saying can only be a good thing.

Over the next month we will be starting the discussions here on this blog in the run up to the event. We will be hearing from the speakers ahead of time as they lay out their views and opinions and hopefully we’ll be hearing from the social entrepreneurs themselves as post their own comments. We are expecting some really interesting and lively debates.

Are you ready? Everyone is welcome to join in!

Tomorrow we start with a guest post from the conference’s organiser – Gladius Kulothungan, Senior Lecturer at the Centre For Institutional Studies.