Citation
Doherty, B. (2014), "Social Enterprise Journal – Annual Review", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 10 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-09-2014-0038
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Social Enterprise Journal – Annual Review
Article Type: Editorial From: Social Enterprise Journal, Volume 10, Issue 3
I am delighted to introduce to you the Social Enterprise Journal’s (SEJ) third edition of 2014 published by Emerald publishers. Firstly, I would like to thank the journal board, the selected reviewers and of course the authors for the papers enclosed.
It has been another excellent year for the SEJ with downloads up by a further 24 per cent on last year showing the best growth of any Emerald journal in 2013/2014. Also, our average days from submission to final decision are an impressive 80 days (average of Emerald journals is 120 days). Therefore, a big thanks must go to our editorial board, the reviewers, the academics who use the journal in their teaching and the authors for this impressive performance; well done! Also congratulations must go again to Dr Helen Haugh who has recorded again the highest number of downloads with a staggering 1,863 downloads this year for her 2012 article titled “The importance of theory in social enterprise research”.
Despite the impressive stats, I still feel SEJ has much greater potential, and we need to strengthen the impact of the journal further. To this end, Professor Simon Teasdale has agreed to become Associate Editor of SEJ. Also we need to improve our presence in the USA; currently the USA only stands ninth in terms of our country download league table position, which is unusual for an entrepreneurship journal. SEJ is now managed by the Emerald USA office in Boston which will help. A number of us will attend the US Social Entrepreneurship conference this year at North Eastern.
This journal has made a significant contribution to theorising social enterprise, but there is still much work on theoretical constructs to be done. In fact, at this years Academy of Management Conference in Philadelphia there was a clamour from the Entrepreneurship Division for social enterprise scholars to do more work on its own theoretical constructs rather than borrowing or adapting from other fields.
Now to the papers for this issue of SEJ. The first paper is an excellent paper by Sarah Fotheringham (University of Calgary, Faculty of Social Work, Calgary, Canada) titled; Social Enterprise as Poverty Reducing Strategy for Women. There is limited research on the poverty reducing role of social enterprise for women and the proposed mechanisms and integrative framework presented provide a means of synthesising our current knowledge while providing the basis for future investigations. The second paper by Racheal Smith (Edmonton County School, Middlesex) Robin Bell and Helen Watts (both from Worcester University, Worcester Business School) is titled; Personality Trait Differences between Traditional and Social Entrepreneurs. This research provides new insights into personality trait differences between social and traditional entrepreneurs and is particularly useful to those with an interest in entrepreneurial orientation and those interested in the identification and development of social entrepreneurs.
The third paper is authored by Fred Seddon, Richard Hazenberg and Simon Denny (from Northampton University, Enterprise, Development and Social Impact Centre) and is titled; Reintegrating socially excluded individuals through a social enterprise intervention. This paper identifies a hybrid social enterprise intervention programme based upon the “vision” of a “heroic” social entrepreneur. It also identifies the advantages of the “real” working environment in increasing the employability of socially excluded individuals, whilst at the same time increasing their social skills. The fourth paper by Miss Adesuwa Omorede (Luleå University of Technology – Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Sweden) is titled; Exploration of motivational drivers towards social entrepreneurship and is set in the Nigerian context. The study presents an emergent model that introduces specific empirically grounded reasons towards individuals’ drives and motives for starting and persisting in social entrepreneurship. The study also adds to the development of literature by highlighting the importance of contextual factors when studying social entrepreneurship and provides explanations for the significant role of passion for social entrepreneurial activities.
The fifth paper is authored by Heike Pia Johansen (University of Southern Denmark, Danish Centre for Rural Research, Denmark) and is titled Green Care − Social Entrepreneurs in the Agricultural Sector. This paper is a study of social entrepreneurship among farmers has not yet been coupled with a sector-based analytical framework. This paper contributes to the literature of social entrepreneurship by supplementing with an agricultural sector-based approach.
Finally, I would to thank the organising team of this year’s 2014 International Social Innovation Research Conference (ISIRC), which took place at Northampton University particularly Dr Tim Curtis who hosted and led the event and did a fantastic job. Next year, in 2015, ISIRC will be held at The University of York, UK and will be hosted by myself on behalf of The York Management School from 6th-8th September 2015.
Bob Doherty