The emergence and contested growth of social enterprise in Thailand

Abstract

This paper investigates the development of the Social Enterprise (SE) in Thailand. Emerging from the non-profit sector in the 1970s, Thailand is now experiencing the development of new state-private policy interventions to stimulate development of SE. We combine the work of Kerlin on the socio-economic environment with the theories of market creation from economic sociology. We pinpoint for the first time the key institutions, networks, cognitive framings and policy initiatives of SE emergence and development in Thailand. In addition, we identify a new country type Social Enterprise Semi Strategic Diverse model form, we term an Authoritarian State-Corporate model.

Social entrepreneurship in context: pathways for new contributions in the field

“…Ultimately to 'prove' theoretical principles correct they must be tested and validated in different spatial contexts. Indeed, several of the articles in this issue develop (Zhao, 2020) or test existing theories (Kerlin et al, 2020;Doherty & Kittipanya-Ngam, 2020) in different Asian contexts. These theories can now be applied with greater confidence in other Asian and global contexts.…”

“…Kerlin et al (2020) provide insight into how social entrepreneurs can manage strong outside pressures that could divert them from their innovative, dual missions. Doherty et al (2020) show how practitioners may benefit when the state and private actors collaborate to create new avenues and support for social entrepreneurship. Lastly, Ong (2020) shows how youth can be trusted and participate in social entrepreneurship in many ways and how such activities may add benefits for them at their current life stage.…”

“…The fifth paper by Doherty and Kittipanya-Ngam (2020) focuses on the development of social enterprises in Thailand through the lens of state-private policy interventions which they labell as a authoritarian state-corporate model. This unique model, which extends the work of Kerlin (2010Kerlin ( , 2017), demonstrates the usefulness of examining relatively unchartered policy and spatial contexts in social entrepreneurship research (i.e., Thailand).…”

The Role of Social Enterprise Hybrid Business Models in Inclusive Value Chain Development

“…The ten social enterprise hybrids in both Thailand and the UK (see Table 1) in this study are competing in sectors such as hot beverages, dairy, chocolate confectionery, snack nuts, rice and organics. Thailand was chosen to participate in this research mainly because of the growing number of social enterprises in the Thailand agrifood sector in recent years [82]. In addition, while Thailand has been ranked amongst the world's top 5 countries producing and exporting food products for the global market, smallholders and growers still suffer from inequalities in value chains [83].…”

Social Enterprise and Taxation Policy: A Systematic Literature Review

“…In our findings, eleven themes have been discussed: Development, Tax Policy, Sustainability, Legal Framework, Public Policy, Financing, Social Enterprise Ecosystem, Typology, Market-oriented, Ideology, and Business Model. As presented in most previous studies commonly focused on development (Doherty & Kittipanya-ngam 2021;García-Jurado et al, 2021;Popkova & Sergi 2019), SEs sustainability (Ketprapakorn & Kantabutra 2019;Mahfuz Ashraf et al, 2019;Samsuddin et al, 2021), and legal framework (Kadir et al, 2019;Nizam et al, 2017;Ye 2021). Two studies concentrated on tax policies in SEs (Killian & O'Regan 2019;Radzi et al, 2021), two papers focused on public policy Choi & Park 2020), and two other studies were conducted from the financing perspective (Akbulaev et al, 2019;Subačienė et al, 2019).…”