Questioning the Legitimacy of Social Enterprises through Gramscian and Bourdieusian Perspectives: The Case of British Social Enterprises

Abstract

Drawing on data from six social enterprises in the UK, we demonstrate that social enterprises negotiate their legitimacy borrowing from the state, the corporation and the service logics. The paper illustrates the existential crises of legitimacy as experienced in the social enterprise sector. The utility of a principled ethical approach is discussed as a way forward. The paper also outlines challenges that social enterprises face when adopting an ethical approach. We mobilise theoretical tools of Gramsci and Bourdieu in order to render visible the often implicit and unquestioned structures of hegemonic power that shape the habitus of legitimacy in social enterprises.

Corruption, Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Constraints: International Firm‐level Evidence

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An incubation perspective on social innovation: the London Hub – a social incubator

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