David Littlewood

Identifying, Mapping, and Monitoring the Impact of Hybrid Firms:

There is growing recognition that hybrid organizations can play a critical role in tackling intractable global sustainable development challenges. At the same time, acute social, environmental, and economic challenges are opening up “opportunity” spaces for hybrids. Different institutional contexts are also leading to variable hybrid forms linked to the focus of their mission and their profit-oriented status. This article presents a process for identifying, mapping, and building impact indicators based on a study of 20 hybrid organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Social Entrepreneurship in South Africa Exploring the Influence of Environment

The influence of environment on social entrepreneurship requires more concerted examination. This article contributes to emerging discussions in this area through consideration of social entrepreneurship in South Africa. Drawing upon qualitative case study research with six social enterprises, and examined through a framework of new institutional theories and writing on new venture creation, this research explores the significance of environment for the process of social entrepreneurship, for social enterprises, and for social entrepreneurs. Our findings provide insights on institutional environments, social entrepreneurship, and the interplay between them in the South African context, with implications for wider social entrepreneurship scholarship.

Social and Environmental Enterprises in Africa: Context, Convergence and Characteristics

This chapter provides an overview of the landscape of social and environmental entrepreneurship in Africa. Utilizing quantitative data on 270 social and environmental enterprises operating in Eastern and Southern Africa, some key characteristics of these kinds of enterprises are identified. These characteristics are reflected upon through a contextual lens contributing to wider debates about the nature of social and environmental entrepreneurship and enterprises in Africa. Drawing upon notions of hybridity, and sustainability oriented entrepreneurship, consideration is furthermore given to the convergence of social and environmental goals in these kinds of businesses, and in wider social and environmental innovation in Africa.

“The price is different depending on whether you want a receipt or not”: Examining the Purchasing of Goods and Services from the Informal Economy in South-East Europe

ABSTRACT Research on the informal economy has largely focussed on supply-side issues, addressing questions like what motivates individuals to work in the informal economy and how can governments tackle this phenomenon. To date, much less attention has been given to demand-side aspects, examining issues around who purchases goods and services from the informal economy, why, and to what extent there are variations according to demographic, socio-economic and geographic dimensions. This paper addresses this imbalance by examining the purchasing of goods and services from the informal economy in South-East Europe. Firstly, this paper identifies the prevalence of such informal purchasing in South-East Europe as well as who undertakes such purchasing. Next, it examines the relative significance of cost factors, social factors and failures in the formal economy, in motivating such purchasing. Finally, it explores variability in the significance of these motivators based on individual-level factors, within and across three South-East European countries.

Social entrepreneurship and CSR theory: insights, application and value: Global Perspectives

The phenomenon of social entrepreneurship has proliferated in recent times. Concurrently, scholarly interest in and work examining social entrepreneurship has also blossomed. Yet there remains much about social entrepreneurship that we still do not know, whilst authors continue to highlight limitations in the state of theory development within the field of social entrepreneurship research. This chapter contributes towards advancing social entrepreneurship scholarship, and addressing these limitations, by exploring the insights, application, and value of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) theory for social entrepreneurship research. To do this, two key CSR theories: stakeholder theory and Carroll’s CSR Pyramid, are analysed. We consider how both theories need to be adapted for a social enterprise context, before presenting a revised stakeholder theory of the social enterprise, and introducing the social enterprise responsibility pyramid. Although discussions in this chapter are principally conceptual, illustrative supporting examples are drawn from case study research with small and medium sized social enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa

Experiences, causes and measures to tackle institutional incongruence and informal economic activity in South-East Europe

To explain the prevalence and persistence of informal economic activity globally, scholars have recently advanced an institutional incongruence perspective. Institutional incongruence exists where there is a misalignment between what is considered legitimate by a society’s formal institutions (e.g. its laws and regulations) and its informal institutions (e.g. norms, values and beliefs). Reporting findings from a series of qualitative focus groups in Bulgaria, Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, this article explores relationships between such institutional incongruence and informal economic activity. In particular, it sheds light on how informality and institutional incongruence are experienced by individuals in South-East Europe. It furthermore provides insights on the causes of such incongruence, and how it can lead to informal economic activity. Finally, it reports on individuals’ perceptions towards different measures to tackle institutional incongruence and informal economic activity, with implications for policymakers in South-East Europe and more widely.

Corporate social responsibility, mining and sustainable development in Namibia: Critical reflections through a relational lens

For its advocates, corporate social responsibility (CSR) represents a powerful tool through which business and particularly multinationals can play a more direct role in global sustainable development. For its critics, however, CSR rarely goes beyond business as usual, and is often a cover for business practices with negative implications for communities and the environment. This paper explores the relationship between CSR and sustainable development in the context of mining in Namibia. Drawing upon extant literatures on the geographies of responsibility, and referencing in-country empirical case-study research, a critical relational lens is applied to consider their interaction both historically and in the present.

Addressing rural social exclusion in the developing world - exploring the role of African social purpose ventures

Originality/value Insights relevant to academic and practitioner audiences are provided, as the chapter addresses a subject area and region that have received limited attention.