Ethnic minority groups and social enterprise: a case study of the East London Olympic boroughs

The world has witnessed the emergence of a great number and variety of social entrepreneurial activities in recent years. In the United Kingdom, the SE sector has experienced considerable growth and nowadays is at the centre of academic and political debate. Yet, very little is known about the extent and nature of ethnic minority involvement in social enterprise activity. Critical to an understanding of this is the reduction of grant funding to third sector organisations as well as the change in race relations and equality policies. Moreover, the social enterprise political discourse that has seen social enterprises as an alternative to move towards market-led provision and the privatisation of public services is relevant to understand the development of ethnic minority social enterprise activities. This research produces insights into the nature and extent of ethnic minority social enterprise activities in the East London Olympic Boroughs and provides a fundamental contribution to the development of policy thinking. This thesis also contributes to theory building in the area through the development of a conceptual framework. Structuration and Mixed Embeddedness theories are considered to explain how the development of ethnic minority social entrepreneurial activities depends on the complex interaction between ethnic minority entrepreneurs (as agents) and the context (as structures) in which they are embedded. This research draws upon evidence from a case study in the East London Olympic Boroughs using a mixed-methods approach, which includes literature and policy review, telephone survey, semi-structured interviews and an in-depth study of organisations. Through analysis of the case study, what is discovered is that there are challenges in defining and measuring ethnic minority social enterprise activities. This thesis also reveals that the role of individual ethnic minority entrepreneurs is crucial for the development of social enterprise activities as well as the context in which they are embedded in terms of their access to resources, market opportunities and the political context that determines this development. Finally, findings demonstrate that the current policy discourse provides little scope for engagement for the majority of small-scale ethnic minority social enterprise organisations.