Bringing Social Innovation and Value Creation through Community Social Enterprise

1. Bringing Social Innovation and Value Creation through Community Social Enterprise Dr Sarah-Anne Munoz and Artur Steinerowski O4O team members Centre for Rural Health, UHI, Inverness, UK

2. O4O and its background O4O – Older People for Older People • NPP project • Why older people? -Current perception of older people -Challenges in service provision -Difficulties in providing services in remote and rural areas Policy view on social enterprise • Policy interest in social enterprise (not for profit social organisations); economic, social and environmental development • Additional benefits e.g. participation, well-being, social capital; empowering communities; tackling social exclusion

3. Research questions and techniques • Research questions • Can social innovation and added value be successfully generated by engaging communities in innovative business models? • What is the role of researchers in social enterprise creation? • Research focus and research context • To test the feasibility of innovative organisational models in which older people provide services to other older people • Remote and rural communities from the Scottish Highlands • Research techniques • Empirical research combining ethnographic and action research techniques

4. What happened in our communities • Community 1 • Oral history DVD • Development of community village hall as a business to generate income to support village services • Community 2 • Informal lift sharing scheme • Community car scheme • Demand responsive service • Community 3 • Community care hub • Community 4 • - Original idea of a neighbourly helping services changed into an enhancement of existing Council Handy Person scheme

5. Process of social innovation

6. The Role of Community Action and the Social Innovation Process • Community action is important at all stages of the social innovation process • Community Engagement • The O4O project manager facilitated community engagement • Project manager builds trust and identifies key citizens within the community • Community needs to engage with concepts of • co-design and co-production • Community Entrepreneurship • Community dialogue is • important • A collective process of needs • recognition takes place • Community comes together to • initiate social enterprise

7. The Role of the ‘External’ Expert • An ‘external’ expert figure was often valued by community members and groups • Community Perceptions of the ‘External’ Expert • The external experts played an important role in catalysing social innovation • Someone from ‘outside’ or a university is viewed as a credible expert/ leader • The ‘External’ Expert for Rural Social Enterprise Development • The external figure can be a positive force in generating social innovation • There is a fine line between supporting the community and getting too involved • Needs connection with, and distance from, the community

8. Building Different Levels of Legitimacy • Within the rural context, different kinds of legitimacy are central to social innovation • Legitimacy with the Community • Communities need to see social enterprises as legitimate service providers • Embedding legitimacy within the community catalyses community social innovation • Legitimacy with the Public Sector • Public sector funding is particularly important in rural areas • Need to see social enterprises as legitimate before commissioning from them • If legitimacy is not embedded the viability of the • enterprise can be jeopardised • Building Discursive Legitimacy • Competence in both civic and • public sector discourses

9. Grounding Organisational Structure in Local Appropriateness • Tension within rural communities: translating existing voluntarism into more formalised participation • Social enterprise model must negotiate this tension • People are included AND excluded from informal helping • Must create a balance between meeting need and damaging existing informal helping structures

10. Conclusions • Social innovation and added value can be successfully generated by engaging communities in innovative business models • Social enterprises need to be recognised as a legitimate service provider by communities and service providers • The act of coalescing of a community group predicates the emergence of social innovation • External facilitators are essential to catalyse the social innovation process • The development of a relationship between communities and public sector providers is significant in order to develop innovative social businesses Sarah-Ann Munoz, Research Fellow, Centre for Rural Health, sarah-anne.munoz@uhi.ac.uk Artur Steinerowski, Research Assistant, Centre for Rural Health artur.steinerowski@uhi.ac.uk