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As a critical and intimate form of inquiry, ethnography remains close to lived realities and equips scholars with a unique methodological angle on social phenomena. This paper aims to explore the potential gains from an increased use of ethnography in social enterprise studies.

The authors develop the argument through a set of dualistic themes, namely, the socio-economic dichotomy and the discourse/practice divide as predominant critical lenses through which social enterprise is currently examined, and suggest shifts from visible leaders to invisible collectives and from case study-based monologues to dialogic ethnography.

Ethnography sheds new light on at least four neglected aspects. Studying social enterprises ethnographically complicates simple reductions to socio-economic tensions, by enriching the set of differences through which practitioners make sense of their work-world. Ethnography provides a tool for unravelling how practitioners engage with discourse(s) of power, thus marking the concrete results of intervention (to some degree at least) as unplannable, and yet effective. Ethnographic examples signal the merits of moving beyond leaders towards more collective representations and in-depth accounts of (self-)development. Reflexive ethnographies demonstrate the heuristic value of accepting the self as an inevitable part of research and exemplify insights won through a thoroughly bodily and emotional commitment to sharing the life world of others.

The present volume collects original ethnographic research of social enterprises. The editorial develops the first consistent account of the merits of studying social enterprises ethnographically.

This chapter develops a community perspective on entrepreneurialization and demonstrates the epistemic value of community-based analysis. It focuses on the particularities of socio-economic settings that shape the emergence of social enterprises and allows for a consideration of diverse groups of actors beyond entrepreneurs.

The chapter draws from a literature review on UK policies around social enterprise and an ethnographic study of a deprived community in North-West England. It provides an in-depth account of how competition for scarce funds and the new hope around entrepreneurialism are negotiated and translated into action by policy actors in one local community.

The review contextualizes the evolution of social enterprise in the United Kingdom and highlights the need for grounded analysis of the effects of policies. A range of themes emerge from the ethnographic case: a misalignment between social workers’ and beneficiaries’ expectations and interests; a tendency to shift from holistic welfare to narrow, time-limited interventions; the importance of spatiality for issues of deprivation; and imbalances in the flows of money and attention between different communities.

The chapter questions the emphasis placed upon social enterprise as a source of innovation. The suggested focus on community redirects scholarly debate to the most important group of actors: the socially, politically, or economically excluded target groups of social innovations.

This chapter contributes to our understanding of the roles being played by social enterprises in a community and raises questions about their value as a vehicle of policy and of innovation.

This paper aims to contribute a qualitative analysis of practitioners' accounts to illuminate alternative approaches to social enterprise that tend to be neglected by predominant academic representations.

By analysing qualitative interviews, the paper examines the ways social entrepreneurs in Germany coproduce and reproduce the prevailing theoretical notions of social enterprise. The main themes of the interviews are elaborated upon to accentuate certain critical aspects that until now have not been the focus of attention in research. Alternative perspectives of the empirical data are developed which indicate patterns that are currently excluded from narrative practices of academia.

There are several insightful perspectives represented in the interview data: the (conspicuous) absence of managerialism as a dominant motivational feature; the complexity of the local political and social realm in which social entrepreneurs think and act in spontaneous, often “non‐rational” ways; and personal and biographical accounts of social entrepreneurs as an important self‐defining feature. The findings demonstrate the explanatory power of qualitative empirical accounts as a starting point to veer away from reductionist drawing‐board concepts of social enterprise.

These articulations of social entrepreneurs' own realities are important as they are sometimes at odds ideologically with managerial approaches to social enterprise which emphasize cost‐efficiency reasoning and financial independence.

The purpose of this paper is to review the development and impact of the Social Enterprise Journal (SEJ) from its inception in 2005 until present day.

The paper analyses the thematic content of SEJ and its impact data from 2005 until 2017.

SEJ has broken new ground in the study of social enterprise (SE). It was the first journal back in 2005 to commence the exploration of this field and since has been the first to publish works on defining SE, their performance management, critical perspectives plus international differences. The paper shows that in the early years, SEJ was dominated by conceptual work aiming to understand SE plus their governance and performance management, which was mainly based on UK descriptive case studies and uncritical. By 2010, SEJ became established internationally with various issues being 100 per cent dominated by international aspects of SE. Recent more critical work has also enabled a process of “myth busting” in the SE field. This paper also shows the growth of SEJ in downloads and citations.

The paper demonstrates the important role SEJ has played in both improving practice and informing policy.

The paper is the first to review the development and impact of SEJ.

Social enterprise plays a pivotal role in helping people and communities. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, there has been an upsurge of social enterprise within a local, national and global context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the debates and issues presented by social enterprise in a very complex globalized world.

In this paper, the authors apply two geographical case studies: China and India. The purpose for selecting both China and India is their increasing economic super power on the global stage. It is argued that the concept of social enterprise within the geographical context of China and India is significant to their individual economies.

The concept of social enterprise within the geographical context of China and India is significant to their individual economies and as explored within the notion of “think global, act local” the conceptual debates of place, space and time enables people to take positive action and enable the development of healthy communities.

This paper contributes to the discussion around the definition of the nature of social enterprise and gives concrete examples of the contextually specific nature of the term.