Understanding Social Enterprise Law

Abstract

Social enterprise in the UK has great potential to address the institutional failures of the private and public sectors in promoting social welfare. The evolution of social enterprise law is shaped by social enterprise development, influenced by politics and changing policies of the UK welfare reform. A comprehensive understanding of social enterprise law is essential for addressing ongoing challenges facing social enterprise and for supporting its development.
A theoretical framework, grounded in Émile Durkheim’s social solidarity theory and Karl Polanyi’s embeddedness theory, conceptualises social enterprise as an organisational model that embeds social elements within the firm, serving as a countermovement to financialised corporate governance. Three elements in social enterprise reflect solidarity and embeddedness: 1) prioritising social interests as collective conscience; 2) pursuing the value of democracy related to stakeholders in governance; and 3) embedding the principles of reciprocity and redistribution in assets and profit management. This conceptual framework also determines the concrete meaning of social enterprise law.
Social enterprise law has both static and dynamic functions. The static function, based on legal recognition, enables social enterprise to incorporate these elements into its constitution and offers accountability mechanisms to ensure its effective functioning. The dynamic function, on the other hand, promotes legal brandings for social enterprise, wider stakeholder attraction and broad collaboration, facilitating the growth of the social enterprise sector.
Aligned with ongoing themes of reforming traditional corporate frameworks, the principles of social enterprise law could inform to traditional corporate law through different conversations. The social norms that prioritise social interests, democracy and reciprocity, facilitated by social enterprise law, could transform the ideas and policies that traditional corporate law has built, potentially generating institutional changes. However, social enterprise law has limitations that require further improvements, and continuous reform of traditional corporate ventures and public institutions is needed to deepen institutional changes.

Date of Award	10 Dec 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Nina Boeger (Supervisor) & Paddy Ireland (Supervisor)