Barriers and opportunities for inter-sectoral collaboration, with particular interest in social innovation processes

This thesis is concerned with the field of Social Entrepreneurship and is based on barriers and opportunities in inter-sectoral collaboration and how new thinking, understood here as incremental social innovation, is created and negotiated in different cases related to urban development. The dissertation's focal point is therefore twofold: what kind of processes and structures are important for whether social innovation extends beyond the drawing board, and to what kind of an ideological field does social innovation belong. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with voluntary social associations, local administrators, politicians and business leaders. Supervisor Linda Lundgaard Andersen

Contact: Monika Fæster monikaf(at)ruc.dk

Deliberation, participation, and the third sector - Muslim Organizations and integration policy in a German context

The PhD project investigates the role of Muslim organizations in the formulation of policy that is intended to create better integration. The focal point of the analysis is the potential that organisations from civil society and the third sector have to contribute to a greater degree of representativeness in policy making. The specific case is Muslim organizations in Berlin and their involvement in local integration policy. Supervisor Lars Hulgård.

Contact: Jenny Eschweiler

Social entrepreneurship, innovative approaches and community development

The purpose of the PhD project is gaining increased, empirically based knowledge about the role that civil society plays in the development of the Danish welfare society from a social entrepreneurship perspective. The specific case is SydhavnsCompagniet in Copenhagen, and the thesis operates on two levels: A subject level, that focuses on the participants in SydhavnsCompagniet's activities, and an institutional level, where SydhavnsCompagniet's interaction with social actors is illustrated and analysed. Based on different understandings of the concept of social entrepreneurship, the project examines how change is created at these two levels, based on an analysis of how social value is created, how innovation occurs, how civil society participates and how it often involves an economic activity. Supervisor Linda Lundgaard Andersen

Contact: Charlotte Rosenberg charlotr(at)ruc.dk

New learning processes in voluntary, social organizations

The PhD project is an pedagogical-anthropological project which, through the multi-site of ethnography, examines the relationship between the non-monetary, social economizing and learning processes in connection with social entrepreneurship and voluntary organizations. The specific case studies are Fountainhouse's youth project "Bogstøtten" in Copenhagen and the youth-to-youth project, "City Year" in London. The aim of the thesis is to examine how different, but coexisting, value perceptions and complexities in voluntary organizations affect the learning processes in specific cultural contexts. Supervisor Linda Lundgaard Andersen.

Contact: Christine Revsbech crevsbech(at)ruc.dk

Organization, innovation and market strategies in public-social enterprise partnerships

In the PhD project I analyse and discuss the hybridity of social enterprises (SE) which often seem to be in opposition to organisational traditions within the public sector. Different organisational cultures present a number of interesting research points, e.g. organisational culture and identity, motivation, management and entrepreneurism. Definitions of social enterprise are many, and the starting point in my approach is the European research network, EMES' nine ideal criteria. Social entrepreneurship is thus something which includes social value, innovation, the third sector and economic activity. SEs are often in the middle of contested fields between private, public, for-profit, non-profit. The diverse organisational forms paint a picture that is equally unclear, as SEs may be self-governed, cooperatives, owned by private funds etc. This makes the definition of the field blurry, and perhaps we should not attempt to define SE, as this may cause the exclusion of initiatives that are productive but fall astray if a specific definition is used. In this breath I use the concept of hybridity as a theoretical basis for the project, in order to analyse SE both as an entity itself and as a way to understand the organisational field between SE and public organisations. Hybridity as a concept draws on an understanding of the world, which is composed of a mixture of multiple dimensions. Supervisor Lars Hulgård.

Contact: Christian Franklin Svensson cfsv(at)ruc.dk

Contexts in which Social Entrepreneurship emerges. Genesis of Social Entrepreneurship

The PhD thesis has a research subject and focus attempting to develop a sociological analysis of a form of social action in the shape of social entrepreneurship defined as a problem solving initiative. The thesis explores what kind of situations and circumstances – both external, in terms of institutions and internal, in terms of motivations and drive in a combination propel the social entrepreneur or the group to create social enterprises. The aim of the investigation is to explore and explain how and why certain individuals/groups create/generate innovative responses/ solutions - understood as social entrepreneurship - to social issues/problems. Social entrepreneurship has been conceptualized as innovative initiatives with a social mission to solve social problems. The research questions are: How does social entrepreneurship emerge? What are the triggers? – including a theoretical and empirical framing of the institutional environment including policy and funding provisions offering both facilitation and resistance to entrepreneurial behavior, the personal or group motivations of the social entrepreneur - or a core group - that unfold in the context of a set of stakeholders who have some issues and problems to solve. This has led to the developing of the following prepositions: 1/Social entrepreneurs work towards a clearly expressed social mission, 2/ they create multiple values – social, economic and other types of values for their stakeholders, 3/ they access a mix of resources – grants, donations and revenue streams generated by business activities and 4/ they seldom act alone but work within an organizational context. GK has done a number of English and Danish empirical case studies of different social enterprises and beginning the analyses of these. Supervisor: Lars Hulgård.

Contact: Gladius Koluthongan G.Kulothungan(at)uel.ac.uk

Participation in micro-enterprise programmes in industrialised economies: a study of peer group lending strategies

The PhD thesis is about how to generate socio-economic change by adapting a particular model, the peer group lending model, originating from Grameen Bank and Accion in the context of micro enterprise development in three western industrialised countries: USA, UK and Norway. The research is based on empirical findings from fieldwork in 5 different peer group lending micro-enterprise development (microfinance) programmes (MFPs) in Norway: Hordaland Network Credit (part of the European Equal Credit Project) and The Women’s Bank National Network, USA: Capital Works (Delaware) and Project Enterprise (New York), and UK: The Full Circle Fund of WEETU, a Norwich based organisation. A comparison of the five programmes are drawn to show how participation in these micro-enterprise (microfinance) programmes has led to various types of change for micro-businesses as well as the overall quality of life of the respondents. Indicators used are among others: Level of participation, number and amount of loans, quality of services, networking among members, personal and business development and change. The research in the thesis has been carried out as exploratory case studies with qualitative review of various stakeholder’s view of the role and function of peer group lending as financial- and social intermediation. The thesis focus on some characteristics of peer lending in high-income economies in the North, and discuss under what conditions peer lending may function and what are strategic and programmatic factors that makes peer lending more or less effective. Supervisor: Lars Hulgård

Contact: Unni Sekkesæter ubs(at)ruc.dk

”Why do stakeholders collaborate” – a case analyses of Niger.

This phd thesis directs its attention to “why do stakeholders collaborate” trying to establish why different stakeholders come together to partner with NDDC, to develop and deliver public services and infrastructure in the Delta Region of Nigeria. The site of research is in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, adopting the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) as case study to explore the dynamic of partnerships in the Delta Region. The thesis has originally developed from a stakeholder model (Freeman, 1984) as the theoretical framework for establishing why, and under which circumstances different stakeholders come together to work in partnership. According to the model, the direct-action environment is made up of, “stakeholder” – individuals or groups that are directly or indirectly affected by an organization in pursuit of its goals. The model further maintains that the roles stakeholders play may change as organizational environments evolve and develop. Furthermore the thesis research work were planned to adopt “situational logic” as its theoretical proposition. The fieldwork and subsequently initial data analyses crystallized the weaknesses of “situational logic” approach and fertilized the need for another theoretical framework to be developed. For this development as well as the further writing up of the thesis and enrollment in the Graduate School of Lifelong Learning as well as collaboration with the Centre for Social Entrepreneurhip has been pursued. Supervisor: Roger Spear.

Contact: Kenneth O-Chukwuma ken.chukwuma(at)btinternet.com