Rethinking the Space of Ethics in Social Entrepreneurship: Power, Subjectivity, and Practices of Freedom

Abstract

This article identifies power, subjectivity, and practices of freedom as neglected but significant elements for understanding the ethics of social entrepreneurship. While the ethics of social entrepreneurship is typically conceptualized in conjunction with innate properties or moral commitments of the individual, we problematize this view based on its presupposition of an essentialist conception of the authentic subject. We offer, based on Foucault's ethical oeuvre, a practice-based alternative which sees ethics as being exercised through a critical and creative dealing with the limits imposed by power, notably as they pertain to the conditioning of the neoliberal subject. To this end, we first draw on prior research which looks at how practitioners of social enterprises engage with government policies that demand that they should act and think more like prototypical entrepreneurs. Instead of simply endorsing the kind of entrepreneurial subjectivity implied in prevailing policies, our results indicate that practitioners are mostly reluctant to identify themselves with the invocation of governmental power, often rejecting the subjectivity offered to them by discourse. Conceiving these acts of resistance as emblematic of how social entrepreneurs practice ethics by retaining a skeptical attitude toward attempts that seek to determine who they should be and how they should live, we introduce three vignettes that illustrate how practices of freedom relate to critique, the care for others, and reflected choice. We conclude that a practice-based approach of ethics can advance our understanding of how social entrepreneurs actively produce conditions of freedom for themselves as well as for others without supposing a 'true self' or a utopian space of liberty beyond power.

Towards an Appreciation of Ethics in Social Enterprise Business Models

“…However, behind this is a substantive 'deep' back with diverse political foundations that are under-theorised in the ield. Despite calls to move beyond deinition (Light 2008;Mair and Marti 2006;Nicholls 2006), we still see beneits from problematising the theorisation of SE through the alternative lens of business ethics (Bull et al 2010;Chell et al 2016;Dacin et al 2010Dacin et al , 2011Dey and Steyaert 2016).…”

“…Scholars in the ield already question whether 'social enterprise' is the Trojan horse for privatisation (Murdoch, 2007), the marketisation of the social economy (Teasdale 2012) or part of a political project to advance neoliberalism into charitable and community-based enterprise (Dey and Steyaert 2016). Such caution is warranted.…”

Entrepreneurship, incongruence and affect: Drawing insights from a Swedish anti-racist organisation

“…However, in contrast to prior studies (Dey and Steyaert, 2016;Hjorth, 2004Hjorth, , 2005Steyaert and Hjorth, 2006a;Tedmanson et al, 2015), linking heterotopia with the real can, we hope, advance the conceptualisation of entrepreneurship as social change in the following ways.…”

The role of institutional and stakeholder networks in shaping social enterprise ecosystems in Europe

“…While social networks within social enterprise ecosystems appear critical as both mediators of stakeholder behaviour and interpretation of logics and discourses (Luhmann, 1989;Van Assche et al, 2014;Hazenberg et al, 2016), the distribution (and potential concentration) of power between stakeholders, as well as stakeholder diversity within the ecosystem, is also an important factor in shaping its development. The power of certain stakeholders to shape discourse can also create networks within the ecosystem that compel individuals/organisations to act or think in certain ways (Dey and Steyaert, 2014).…”

“…This diversity will also allow for increased heterogeneity in the social enterprise 'gene pool' (During et al, 2016) and increase communication in order to facilitate positive change, learning and the continual reassessment of logics (Luhmann, 1988). It is such pluralistic networks that allow social enterprise ecosystems to understand their environment and see the 'truth' (Dey and Steyaert, 2012), resist dominant discourses (Jones et al, 2015), and think and behave independently and innovatively (Dey and Steyaert, 2014) by creating areas of low power distance (Puumalainen et al, 2015) and increasing trust and collaboration (Zafeiropoulou and Koufopoulos, 2013;Qureshi et al, 2016).…”