(posted on behalf of @Julian Riano)
Those brave enough to answer this question might bring forward concepts such as social capital, social innovation, social objectives, value creation and market requirements. However, previous studies on social entrepreneurship (SE) have argued it is ‘an essentially contested concept’, ‘it lacks construct legitimacy and undefined theoretical content and boundaries’, ‘the field has not been completely probed, and there exists some unexplored research themes for future research’, whilst others recognised ‘SE research transcends the foci on either detached structures or individuals, and that research in SE is often led by advocacy worldviews of the researcher themselves’. As a result of such conundrum, Filipa Lancastre, Carmen Lages and Filipe Santos embarked on a quest aiming to find the reasons behind such discrepancies and lack of consensus described in their recent Journal of Business Ethics article titled “Social Entrepreneurship as a Family Resemblance Concept with Distinct Ethical Views”. There they recognise ‘membership’ in SE is not defined by a universally accepted set of criteria (as traditionally suggested by prior research) but by carrying shared attributes with other cases.
Lancastre recognized challenges at the outset of this study such as coming across different perspectives of the concept through a representative sample of 209 definitions. She acknowledges “most authors, what they are looking for is a unique definition of social entrepreneurship that is based on certain characteristics of the phenomenon, and I realised that from the different definitions there were characteristics that seemed to overlap with other definitions, but others that did not […] the characteristics of the concept are like pieces of Lego […] but what about those pieces of Lego that are not picked up so often? Why are you leaving them out?” which was the Aha! moment. Moreover, two particular actions helped move the study forward, as Lancastre recalls, one, the persistence to break down SE definitions, rather than trying to group them, to find similarities and attributes moving away from the classical conceptualisation; and two, the exercise of presenting their paper at conferences and sending it out to journals to receive feedback. By comparing the feedback received, authors realized some of it was similar but also contrasting, and somewhat discouraging, which evidenced the existence of distinct schools of thought in SE studies.
After the initial examination of SE definitions and the identification of distinct perspectives, authors recognised the need for exploring how diverse ethical views could provide guidance in their quest to appreciate why there were so many and, sometimes contrasting, ways of understanding SE. Authors then addressed three main ethical perspectives and several specific normative ethical theories within these broader perspectives: consequentialism – where the moral worth of actions is given by their outcomes; deontology – which argues that an action is deemed moral based on whether it is right or wrong rather than on its consequences; and virtue ethics – which focuses on the premise that everyone can be cultivated to do the right thing for the right reason in an appropriate way. Authors made a great effort in presenting their results clearly and in a way that made sense to readers; however, Lancastre recognises this was not an easy task and was the result of two main actions: one, the valuable and specific feedback from reviewers across different journals as well as the continuous reading from ‘foundational’ books on ethical theory.
More often than not, the effort and challenges faced behind the scenes to develop, complete, and publish a high-quality paper go unnoticed, as publications are topic specific, academically focused, and detached from any human, emotional, or contextual framework occurring to authors during this process. One of the challenges worth mentioning was that one of the authors got pregnant with her fourth child and managing her work, presenting at conferences, and caring for her other three children got the best of her so the paper development process suffered delays. Then came Covid-19, and this represented another big hurdle as these were unchartered waters for everyone. The third challenge was that Lancastre was trying to finish her PhD and publish two more papers as a requirement for her qualification which intensified the stress and the overall pressure “…I learned a lot during the process, but it was painful…it was a self-discovery process, definitely, but at the same time it was an opportunity to reflect on the work…”
The consequence of arduous work, commitment, and academic rigour is a quality study, and that is what these authors have done. As our conversation draws to a close, Lancastre highlights some key points: first, with the interest to provide meaningful comments, reviewers could identify their perspective and thinking framework to avoid placing a strong bias since “there is a strong link to their own values” when providing feedback which sometimes avoids recognising alternative and/or contrasting perspectives. Second, the fact that there are less-cited papers in any particular topic do not make them less relevant or wrong, but more overlooked which could place an emphasis on biased perspectives, so, the idea is to be more objective and take every article for their contribution and identify how they fit in within the larger picture. Third, being rigorous with every section of the study is key, especially the analysis, to avoid bias whilst presenting a solid argument based on evidence, so, she says “hold on to your rigour”. And fourth, “the [research] process takes time, so, trust the process…this will allow time to mature your ideas”.