These are the presentation slides for my research presentation at the Critical Management Studies 2009 conference, held at Warwick Business School.

1. Driving sideways? Policy and the
Shaping of Social Enterprise in the UK
Dr Chris Mason,
Liverpool Business School,
Liverpool John Moores University
c.mason@ljmu.ac.uk

2. Social enterprise
A form of nonproAit: vehicle for achieving social
aims through entrepreneurship.
• Cooperatives, charity trading arms, credit unions, housing
trusts, fair trade companies, Social Firms, etc…
From humble origins…to nascent corporate
hybrids.
• NPM, and its mutation via New Labour fundamentally
supports blurred boundaries between public and third
sectors.
Decoupling welfare provision?
• Privatisation via the back door?
• ‘Holding hands’ with Brown, Cameron, and Clegg?
• A disturbing thought...

3. Stopped making sense
SE tends to be poorly (or inconsistently) understood as a concept and a
practice.
• This applies to the general public, and within the sector.
• The plurality of SE types does not help to resolve the issues
surrounding multiple meanings.
• Much academic effort is still expended on Ainding the right deAinition.
• Academic communities have been slow to examine key issues, such as
governance.
• Also, progress along a ‘critical’ dimension has been slowly adopted.
• Sniping from the margins, rather than embedding critical social and
political discourse.

4. Talk to the hand: a cynics view of SE policy
When is the third sector not the third sector?
• When it’s a pseudo‐public sector.
The enemy of my enemy is a civil servant?
• Government policy supports the growth of SE sector…
…but what will be the long‐term cost?
• Type and form of provision.
• Clustering of SEs.
• A less than independent sector…

5. The sphere of inAluence: SE governance
The problem with being popular…
• Political aggrandisement vs. implementation in the real world.
What does this mean for the SE?
• Encouragement to join public or ‘mainstream’ markets.
• Align with the more entrepreneurial US‐model, which has been
subjected to criticism.
• How are SEs expected to manage in this environment?
• There are exceptions...
Closing down the conversation = political hubris
• This does not help to develop and support the typical SE board.
• What will be the parameters for transparency and accountability?

6. Concluding comments
DeAinitional ambiguity allows government to take control of the
SE sector and its future direction.
• Academics need to focus more on critical issues surrounding the SE sector and
the welfare state, e.g. isomorphism.
Policy does not evidently assist the management of SEs,
particularly governance.
• Private‐sector values, such as Board recruitment, skills‐set and remuneration
are being encouraged among SE boards.
Whose social beneAit is it anyway?
• Do social beneAiciaries need to take primacy in the SE, or is this simply a
means‐ends situation?