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The main objective of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISE) is to integrate those with intellectual or physical disabilities and other disadvantaged groups, including the long-term unemployed, back into the labour market and society through a productive activity. The historic evolution of the WISE sector highlights the ways in which the organizational model has been adapted in response to shifting social constructions about appropriate levels of integration and norms about employment for disadvantaged groups, as well as the changing nature of jobs in the entry-level labour market. Based on these different forms of public recognition, several types of WISEs emerged based on how workers are integrated into the workplace and/or mainstream labour markets. WISEs are present in all regions of the world and across many social enterprise models. They are a common form of social enterprise, and one that continues to evolve, taking different shapes across alternative policy regimes.

Supplemental material, LEC907024 Supplemental Material for Rural social enterprises in Europe: A systematic literature review by Mara Willemijn van Twuijver, Lucas Olmedo, Mary O’Shaughnessy and Thia Hennessy in Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit

One of the most important developments in small-scale agriculture and in local food retailing in the last decade has been the emergence of a new generation of farmers’ markets in countries such as Ireland, the USA, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Farmers’ markets are now a significant alternative source of sales, distribution and marketing for many small scale producers and a valuable source of fresh, local and specialist produce for growing numbers of consumers. This paper presents findings from the initial stages of a large-scale study which seeks to establish how farmers’ markets in Ireland can best be structured and organised to increase the competitiveness and sustainability of small farmers and to strengthen farmer influence and control in the marketplace. The research is particularly concerned with examining the potential of formal co-operative structures, which though relatively common in farmers’ markets in the US and the UK, remain largely unexplored in an Irish context. While ongoing extensive quantitative and qualitative research on all Irish farmers’ markets is the primary focus of the research, field visits to markets and key informants in the US and UK have also been conducted and completed. The findings from the latter research – and more specifically, their potential relevance to Irish farmers’ markets at their current stage of development – are the subject of this paper.

Rural social enterprises throughout Europe are found to fulfil needs of rural communities that are not met otherwise (van Twuijver et al., 2020). Previous research shows that rural social enterprises are strongly embedded within their local communities, while at the same time connecting these to external actors and network (Richter, 2019). Furthermore, previous research shows that rural social enterprises operate from a wide and diverse resource base (O’Shaughnessy and O’Hara, 2016b). In this study, this resource base is understood as a hybrid resource base, given that resources from the private, public and third sector are combined (Doherty, Haugh and Lyon, 2014). In recent decades there is growing interest from policy, practice and academia in the role that rural social enterprises can play in realizing rural development (TFSSE, 2014; Richter et al., 2020). Against this backdrop, this study set out to deepen our understanding of the way in which rural social enterprises operate within a rural context. Hitherto, empirical research into this has been scarce, leaving gaps in our understanding of how and through which mechanisms rural social enterprises are able to realize meaningful contributions to the places and communities they serve. In order to investigate this, two research questions have been formulated. The first question is focused on investigating which capabilities rural social enterprises develop in order to manage their hybrid resource base. The second research question is focused on how rural social enterprises engage with the rural context in which they operate. A conceptual framework has been constructed that utilizes insights from Resource Orchestration Theory (ROT) and the human geographic concept of place. In combining the two theoretical perspectives, a framework emerged in which place is understood as a unique configuration of (potential) resources that rural social enterprises engage with as part of their hybrid resource portfolio. This framework has been utilized to conduct an in-depth qualitative case analysis of two rural social enterprises in Ireland. Data has been collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observations and archival document analysis. The data has been analysed using abductive analysis, anchored in a realist ontology. The findings of this study outline five capabilities developed by rural social enterprises that support the orchestration of a hybrid resource portfolio, namely institutional connectivity, community connectivity, market connectivity, managing paradoxes and organisational adaptability, and describe the practices that underly each of these capabilities. Furthermore, the findings outline six forms of engagement with place, namely harnessing locational aspects for marketable activities; fostering a collective sense of place; (re)invigorating social connections; enhancing institutional relations; building on local human capital; and improving local material settings. The findings evidence that rural social enterprises do not only utilize economic means to fulfil their organisational objectives but show the importance of integrating these means with resources deriving from institutional and community sources. In describing five capabilities utilized to manage the hybrid resource portfolio, this study provides insight into the organisational processes and routines that enable the mobilization and integration of different resources in a rural setting. Moreover, the described capabilities support engagement with place because they provide the rural social enterprises with different approaches to access and mobilize elements of place as organisational resources. By utilizing elements of place as organisational resources, the rural social enterprises are found to alter/enhance these elements, and hence are not only influenced by, but also influence the rural context in which they operate. It is concluded that there is a mutually reinforcing link between the ability to manage a hybrid resource portfolio and engagement with place. Additionally, it is concluded that productively hybridizing resources originating from the private, public and third sector supports the ability of rural social enterprises to function in a rural context. Practically, the findings of this study show that a better understanding of the complex character of rural social enterprises is needed to fully realize their potential as a link in the chain of rural development.

The issue of food insecurity has moved to the forefront of social policy debates, with inadequate diets affecting one in three people globally (IFPRI, 2016) and with low income persons carrying the largest burden. The impacts of food insecurity on health are extensive and resonate throughout a lifetime which positions issues of food insecurity as a central social justice concern. An increasingly normalized response to food insecurity, more commonly referred to as food poverty in Ireland, is the redistribution of surplus food. In the decade following the economic crisis of 2008-10 Ireland has witnessed a rapid expansion of charitable food services and the establishment of what would become Ireland’s first national system of surplus food redistribution. This growth was also facilitated by multiple co-existing factors and circumstances. These include the historical precedence and primacy afforded to charitable responses, the withdrawal of significant third sector funding post economic crash, Ireland’s persistently high rates of poverty, and a protracted homelessness crisis. An additional critical factor in this trajectory has been the deepening neoliberal ideology promoting novel, business led solutions and Corporate Social Responsibility responses to issues of social inequality. These features of Irish society combined with an increasing awareness of the problem of food waste positioned surplus food as a legitimate and distinguished approach to tackling poverty more generally. This thesis focusses on the contemporary charitable food system in Ireland and is set against the backdrop of increasing diet-related poor health, rising inequality, wider food system trends, and the experiences of charitable food assistance in other high-income countries. Using critical realism as a metatheory and Cork city as an embedded case study, several aspects of Ireland’s contemporary charitable food system are explored. This includes the organisations providing charitable food assistance, the surplus food flowing through it, the circumstances and level of food insecurity and ill-health experienced by its users, and the representation of food poverty at the national level. The overarching goal is to identify the factors influencing food governance within the charitable food system and its impact at the local level. The findings suggest that several dominant ideas and practices influence the governance of food within the charitable food system and work to indirectly support, and legitimize, the use of any surplus food as a response to poverty. This includes the conceptualisation of food poverty and nutritional poverty as separate issues which in turn supports the idea that health concerns are outside the remit and responsibility the organisations responding to food poverty. The local impacts of surplus food redistribution include redistribution beyond demand, in some instances the replacement of food vouchers with surplus and the loss of charity-based support for local food businesses. The findings highlight that the growing role of the charitable sector as a key food waste reduction strategy means that surplus food redistribution is influencing the diets, the health, and food cultures of low income populations using these services. Aligning these concerns with surplus food redistribution would prevent further deepening Ireland’s inequalities. A practical first step in this regard would be the introduction of a healthy food policy across the charitable food. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that the ideological framing surrounding food poverty have changed little since the early 20th Century where the focus was on the ‘personal’ rather than ‘economic or social reform’ (Miller, 2014), on providing food rather than addressing the causes of food poverty and with the local community as duty bearer. This thesis ultimately argues that a more critical reflection on food charity in Ireland is required with questions of social justice and the human right to good food in a socially accepted manner, taking centre stage.

Since the 1990s social enterprises have gained growing attention from academics and policymakers as significant actors to address some of the complex challenges faced by our societies due to their aim of combining social, economic and/or environmental goals using entrepreneurial/innovative means. Rural areas have demonstrated to be a fertile ground for social enterprises. Diverse factors such as a tradition of mutual self-help, a great density of social networks, the often unattractiveness for private investors looking to maximise profits or the consequences of neoliberal policies that have left some rural areas without adequate (basic) services have contributed to the presence of social enterprises within rural areas. The main characteristics of social enterprises operating within European rural areas, i.e. strong local focus, development of networks with external actors, ability to mobilise a wide range of resources, intrinsic relation with the rural context and contribution to different dimensions of development, concur with the principles of neoendogenous rural development. This perspective of rural development advocates for an integrated development of rural localities/areas based on the utilisation of local assets, while recognising the importance of linking local with external actors for attracting those resources not available at the local level and the influence of exogenous-structural (global) factors in local/regional development. Despite this link between rural social enterprises and neoendogenous development, established through a (systematic) literature review of previous research, how rural social enterprises work to contribute to a neoendogenous rural development has not been explored to date, constituting the main aim of this thesis. To pursue this aim, the phenomenon researched has been conceptualised drawing on a ‘substantive’ view of the economy as proposed by Polanyi. According to this view, economic actors and relations are embedded within society and nature, and the economy is formed by three ‘forms of economic integration’, i.e. reciprocity, redistribution and market-exchange. This conceptual framework has been complemented with the concepts of ‘spatial scale’ and ‘place’ in order to add nuance to the analysis of rural social enterprises as neoendogenous development actors. The methodology of this study was underpinned by a critical realist perspective which lies in the combination of a realist ontology with a constructivist epistemology. According to critical realism the ultimate goal of social science research is to uncover the mechanisms that can (partially) explain an observed phenomenon. In order to so, two in-depth case studies of social enterprises operating within Irish rural localities were conducted. During 15 months of continuous engagement with the two rural social enterprises, 36 semi-structured interviews with diverse stakeholders, 321 pages of field notes from participant observations and other complementary materials were gathered. These data were thematically analysed through several rounds of coding performed through an iterative process (of five stages) between data collection, the analysis of empirical data and theoretical reflections. This process allowed for an increasingly focused data collection and for the verification and/or refinement of (preliminary) findings. The findings from this study explain three interrelated mechanisms used by these rural social enterprises when contributing to the neoendogenous development of their localities. The first mechanism explains how the engagement of rural social enterprises in plural and multi-scalar (socio-)economic relations and their collaborative and collective resourcefulness practices are related with their capacity to contribute to an integrated development of their localities. The second mechanism explains how rural social enterprises act as ‘supporting structures’ that enhance regular plural (socio-)economic relations among different local actors within their localities. Thus, it explains their contribution to the institutionalisation of substantive ‘forms of economic integration’ at the local level. The third mechanism explains how the work of rural social enterprises is influenced by the specific features of their rural context and, how these organisations engage with their context as a (integrated) ‘place’. Thus, it explains how rural social enterprises harness and (re)valorise locational, institutional, material and identity aspects when contributing to the development of their localities. In conclusion, this study argues that rural social enterprises (can) act as ‘placial embedded structures’ which (re)valorise (untapped) local assets and attract external resources based on their ability to enhance collective action and to develop synergies with different stakeholders. Therefore, these organisations present great potential to contribute to neoendogenous rural development. However, this study also poses some notes of caution to this potential. First, this potential lies in their complementarity to other key development stakeholders such as public authorities or for-profit local businesses. Second, to draw a realistic picture of this potential, spatially sensitive research and policies that address the heterogeneity of rural areas are needed. These notes are based on the empirical evidence presented in this study which demonstrate how substantive ‘forms of economic integration’ and ‘place’ matter for explaining the work rural social enterprises as neoendogenous rural development actors.