Purpose – This paper aims to set out the current theoretical landscape of social enterprise governance. It considers the two theories of governance currently advocated in the social enterprise literature – stakeholder and stewardship theories. Furthermore, it asserts the utility of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline the findings of a quantitative study of Social Firms between 2006 and 2007. In doing so, it examines the challenges that boards and managers in these organisations face. Design/methodology/approach – In order to test propositions developed...

Purpose – Current social entrepreneurship (SE) literature advocates a critical reexamination of the core construct. As such, and based on the seemingly endless definitional debate among academics, this paper seeks to empirically analyse social entrepreneurship discourse in the United Kingdom....

This paper explores how political institutions use language in social policy to control and naturalise understanding of key social issues and practices. Specifically, I address the impact of blurred discourses and the exploitation of a cultivated ambiguity surrounding social entrepreneurship...

This paper provides a comparative assessment of the legal frameworks for non-profit organisations (NPOs) in England and Japan, offering fresh insights into the differences in legislative support for NPO development in both countries. Following a review of NPO legal developments in England and...

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the durability of social entrepreneurship (SE) identity gleaned from narrative accounts of SE. Specifically, this chapter draws on in-depth narrative interviews with five leading social entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom to explore the contested nature...