Kohonen, Matti
(2012)
Actor-network theory as an approach to social enterprise and social value: a case study of Ghanaian social enterprises.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
This thesis assesses the potential of actor-network theory (ANT) for conceptualising
social enterprise by applying the concepts of assemblage and translation to the
production of social values through three fieldsites studied in Ghana. Social
enterprises are companies that use market-based revenues to generate social value
while maintaining financial viability. Social entrepreneurship involves using and
combining resources, expertise and networks in an innovative way to achieve social
value. Finally, social value makes it possible to explore well-being and common
good in ways that cannot be reduced merely to individual needs and wants or to
monetary quantities.
The present study examines social enterprises and social entrepreneurship through
three case-studies and draws lessons from nine months of fieldwork in Ghana in
2004-2005. Using actor-network theory allows us to trace and follow the three social
enterprises and social entrepreneurs beyond the conventional understanding of an
enterprise or an economy. Measuring and evaluating the qualities of interactions
aimed at enhancing social value, social enterprises create new identified objects and
realities by involving the stakeholders, users and customers in the process, not just
experts, economists and accountants. These pluralistic socio-technical objects are
considered in this study as assemblages. The production of social values is studied
through the notion of ‘translation’ where values are gradually articulated through
different stages.
These propositions are studied by way of a ‘test’ in all three cases, in which various
assemblages are identified according to three themes. The first theme discusses
information assemblages, which is seen as a source of problematisations; the second
relates to spatial assemblages and how they facilitate new associations to emerge; the
third theme is credit and money; and how actors use them to enrol new resources.
Finally, these resources are evaluated using either internal or external measuring tools
developed for the social enterprise sector. Social values emerge through the cyclical
process.
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