From community entrepreneurship to commercial endeavour: putting theory to work in a social enterprise setting

This paper is submitted for consideration as a potential contributor to AGSE topic 11, social entrepreneurship. Working within a context of early growth stage community business, the paper is initially presented as an extension to an earlier work of the author's, in which a process of literature review and synthesis was used to determine a model of best practice development for social enterprise. From this perspective, therefore, the principal topic of the paper is best described as an identification and evaluation of the most effective approach to implementing social enterprise theory. However, as the methodology paragraphs below will indicate, the paper also describes the processes adopted, and the outcomes that resulted, when the resulting best practice model was presented to a broad spectrum panel of public, private and third sector stakeholders for endorsement and adoption as a viable and practical business model. From this alternative perspective, the paper can be viewed as an analysis of the systemic barriers that exist between academically rigorous theory construction and commercially viable practical application.