Social enterprise and dis/identification: the politics of identity work in the English third sector

Pascal Dey, Simon Teasdale

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Social enterprise has been criticized for discursively transforming
    third sector organizations and practitioners into economic
    agents. Such a critique too readily construes the discourse of
    social enterprise as a deterministic force that encroaches on all
    aspects of organizational and individual identity. We reintroduce
    a sense of agency to discursive conceptualizations through an
    empirical study focusing on whether and how social enterprise
    infiltrates the third sector at the level of the subject. Drawing from
    a qualitative study in England, we use Pêcheux’s three-part model
    of dis/identification as an explanatory schema to conceptualize
    the ways third sector practitioners endorse or reject the inherent
    norms and principles of social enterprise. The discussion
    covers how processes of identification, counter-identification,
    and disidentification, respectively, perpetuate or transgress the
    discourse of social enterprise and highlights the implications for
    future research in this developing field.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)248-270
    Number of pages23
    JournalAdministrative Theory and Praxis
    Volume35
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 2013

    Keywords

    • social enterprise
    • identity
    • identity management
    • UK
    • third sector

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