Bringing Social Innovation and Value Creation
through Community Social Enterprise
Dr Sarah-Anne Munoz and Artur Steinerowski
O4O team members
Centre for Rural Health, UHI, Inverness, UK
O4O and its background
O4O – Older People for Older People
• NPP project
• Why older people?
-Current perception of older people
-Challenges in service provision
-Difficulties in providing services
in remote and rural areas
Policy view on social enterprise
•Policy interest in social enterprise (not for profit social organisations);
economic, social and environmental development
•Additional benefits e.g. participation, well-being, social capital;
empowering communities; tackling social exclusion
Research questions and techniques
Research questions
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Can social innovation and added value be successfully generated by
engaging communities in innovative business models?
-
What is the role of researchers in social enterprise creation?
Research focus and research context
-
To test the feasibility of innovative organisational models in which
older people provide services to other older people
-
Remote and rural communities from the Scottish Highlands
Research techniques
-
Empirical research combining ethnographic and action research
techniques
What happened in our communities
Community 1
- Oral history DVD
- Development of community village hall as a business to generate income
to support village services
Community 2
- Informal lift sharing scheme
- Community car scheme
- Demand responsive service
Community 3
- Community care hub
Community 4
- Original idea of a neighbourly helping services changed into an
enhancement of existing Council Handy Person scheme
Process of social innovation
UHI Millennium Institute and The University of Aberdeen working in partnership
Project initiation
Meet the community
Generate confidence / enthusiasm
Discussion about O4O concept
Community Engagement
Identification of Needs
Building trust / relationships
Initiatives selected to take forward
Co-production process starts
Identification of potential models
of social organisation
Business planning & feasibility
studying
Community capacity & skills
Resources (local and external)
O4O delivers services
Models of social organisation established / case studies
Other communities develop services?
Toolkit
Training
The Role of Community Action and the Social Innovation Process
UHI Millennium Institute and The University of Aberdeen working in partnership
Community action is important at all stages of the social innovation process
Community Engagement
• The O4O project manager facilitated community engagement
• Project manager builds trust and identifies key citizens within the community
• Community needs to engage with concepts of
co-design and co-production
Community Entrepreneurship
• Community dialogue is
important
• A collective process of needs
recognition takes place
• Community comes together to
initiate social enterprise
The Role of the ‘External’ Expert
UHI Millennium Institute and The University of Aberdeen working in partnership
An ‘external’ expert figure was often valued by community members and
groups
Community Perceptions of the ‘External’ Expert
• The external experts played an important role in catalysing social innovation
• Someone from ‘outside’ or a university is viewed as a credible expert/ leader
The ‘External’ Expert for Rural Social Enterprise Development
• The external figure can be a positive force in generating social innovation
• There is a fine line between supporting the community and getting too
involved
• Needs connection with, and distance from, the community
Building Different Levels of Legitimacy
UHI Millennium Institute and The University of Aberdeen working in partnership
Within the rural context, different kinds of legitimacy are central to social
innovation
Legitimacy with the Community
• Communities need to see social enterprises as legitimate service providers
• Embedding legitimacy within the community catalyses community social
innovation
Legitimacy with the Public Sector
• Public sector funding is particularly important in rural areas
• Need to see social enterprises as legitimate before commissioning from them
• If legitimacy is not embedded the viability of the
enterprise can be jeopardised
Building Discursive Legitimacy
• Competence in both civic and
public sector discourses
UHI Millennium Institute and The University of Aberdeen working in partnership
Grounding Organisational Structure in Local Appropriateness
• Tension within rural communities: translating existing voluntarism into more
formalised participation
• Social enterprise model must negotiate this tension
• People are included AND excluded from informal helping
• Must create a balance between meeting need and damaging existing
informal helping structures
Conclusions
Social innovation and added value can be successfully generated
by engaging communities in innovative business models
-
Social enterprises need to be recognised as a legitimate service provider by
communities and service providers
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The act of coalescing of a community group predicates the emergence of
social innovation
-
External facilitators are essential to catalyse the social innovation process
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The development of a relationship between communities and public sector
providers is significant in order to develop innovative social businesses
Sarah-Ann Munoz, Research Fellow, Centre for Rural Health, sarah-anne.munoz@uhi.ac.uk
Artur Steinerowski, Research Assistant, Centre for Rural Health artur.steinerowski@uhi.ac.uk