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| Day Conference Details and AbstractsThe following papers were presented on 12 May 2004 at the University of Manchester, hosted by Peter Halfpenny:-
Professor Jon Van Til, Rutgers University, Growing Social Capital and Strengthening Community Infrastructure: a dilemma for social policy?In a book published in 1988 and titled MAPPING THE THIRD SECTOR, I looked at society as composed of four basic institutions: the economy, government, the third (voluntary, nonprofit, philanthropic, charitable, etc.) sector, and the "informal sector"--the last being the home of family, kin, and neighborhood. It seemed to me that the good society was more of a four-wheel drive vehicle than a three-legged stool. Contemporary society, after all, provides us with four major sets of institutions to solve our common problems: families and other basic groups that represent our "core culture", voluntary organizations and other nonprofit organizations that bring us together to address our common problems, governmental structures that embody our democratic aspirations and institutions, and a myriad of corporations and businesses that build our common wealth and foster most of our employment. Out of that schema come suggestions for GROWING CIVIL SOCIETY, as I titled a book published in 2000. In a Fulbright term at the University of Ulster, I'm looking at social capital as a commonly assumed community asset, and weak community infrastructure as a commonly assumed liability. In my visit with VSSN, I'd like to share some of this thinking with colleagues more familiar than I with the meanderings of social policy in the U.K. For further information see http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~vantil Mike Aiken, Open University, UK and Ingo Bode, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, NONPROFIT ORGANISATIONS TACKLING UNEMPLOYMENT IN GERMANY AND THE UK: VIGOROUS INDEPENDENT ENTERPRISES MEETING SOCIAL NEEDS OR THE EMERGENCE OF ‘ENTREPRENEURIAL NOT-FOR PROFITS WITH LIMITED SOCIAL LIABILITY?’Long-term unemployment has remained high on the political agenda across Europe for over 15 years. EU institutions and national governments have become aware of the third sector role in employment creation with ‘Work integration social enterprises’ (WISE) having a high profile. These social enterprises are independently established organisations that have been engaged, typically, in recycling, community transport, childcare services or regeneration projects. Their twin aims have been to merge economic activities for the public good with a strategy of directly employing, training or supporting people disadvantaged in the labour market. They hold out the promise of an alternative to both laissez-faire market liberalism and state interventionism. This paper, drawn from a two year 12 country research project, explores the contrasting experience in the UK and Germany of social enterprises active in work integration activities. We argue that many social enterprises in Germany and the UK resemble each other in terms of their origins or founding values but then developed in different directions. In some cases they now appear to be converging in a direction involving either a greater managerial control by the state or an emphasis on commercial imperatives. Many of the organisations studied in both countries can trace their roots to a brand of community activism prevalent from the 1970s onwards centred on social and environmental concerns. Such organisations have also grown in the context of a generally supportive public policy climate where use has been made of various employment programmes concerned with job creation, job subsidy, self-employment or co-operative development. The differences have been that the German WISEs mainly grew uniformly in response to the range of national labour market schemes. In the UK the field has been harder to define and more fuzzy. WISE-type activity is spread across, and through, a wide variety of organisational types in the voluntary and co-operative sector under differing regulative regimes. We characterise the prevailing UK ethos as having been work integration through usual business, whereas in Germany the emphasis has been on the notion of work integration through social experience. Today in both countries these organisations are, we suggest, tending to converge into two dominating directions: either towards a managerial steering by public bodies or a heightened commercial focus. Both tendencies can threaten these organisations’ social empowerment goals of supporting the most disadvantaged while at the same time undermining their independence. We may thus see the emergence of a new kind of organisation: ‘entrepreneurial not-for profits and with limited social liability.’ This paper is based on results from a two year research project (entitled PERSE) involving 12 European Union states, funded through the EU’s Framework V research stream, and conceived by a European network of research centres active on Social Enterprises issues (EMES: www.emes.net). Karl Wilding, National Council for Voluntary Organisations, ACCOUNTING FOR CHANGE: LEARNING AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS FROM A LARGE-SCALE SURVEY OF UK CHARITIES STATUTORY REPORT.Benchmark surveys commissioned by the Office for National Statistics covering the years 1991 and 1994/95 indicated that the UK voluntary sector was expanding in scope and, more significantly, in scale. The last benchmark survey estimated the sector had an income of £11.8 billion (1994/95 prices). Recent revisions of the core benchmarks have relied upon a methodology to ‘roll forward’ the main estimates without recourse to a benchmark survey. Using a combination of ratios (developed from the benchmark survey), secondary sources and limited primary data collection, it has been possible to provide ONS and the policy community with more up-to date evidence of the changing nature of the voluntary sector in the UK. This approach is, however, no longer tenable. Changes in the organisational landscape, a fundamentally different set of institutional relationships, fiscal reform, devolution, and a deteriorating macro-economic environment necessitate a new benchmark survey. This paper reports upon the methodological approach and challenges of revising these estimates, from both a research and a public policy perspective. It highlights the challenge (and opportunity) of using statutory reports as a source material, and the continuing difficulty of reconciling accounts-derived estimates with other data sources. The paper also reports some of the main findings of the survey, which was undertaken over the period January-November 2003. Our data suggest that the period of long-term growth in the 1990s may have halted, or at best slowed. Evidence of continued short-term income volatility and the threat to sustainability resulting from falling equity markets are also presented. Robert Dalziel, Open University, UK, WHY DO TENANTS AND RESIDENTS ASSOCIATIONS COLLABORATE WITH THEIR LOCAL AUTHORITY?This paper will report on my recent research findings that illustrate some important issues around why the management of participation and collaboration is both demanding and difficult in a complex local political and social context. It focuses on insights gained from a case study of collaboration involving 80 tenants and residents associations (representing neighbourhoods of between 100 and 3,500 households across a city of 513,000 inhabitants), the local authority and its housing and tenants participation staff and elected representatives. The paper elaborates on a gap in knowledge about how collaborative relations and the meaning of citizenship have changed as a result of new legislation and altered local government structures. It tries to establish why tenants and residents associations collaborate with their local authority and investigates how the different institutional structures and practices of government and its agencies impact on collaboration. I refer, in particular, to the work of DiMaggio and Powell (1983) and ‘mimetic isomorphism’ where an organization imitates another successful organization in an attempt to reduce uncertainty in its environment. Giddens (1979) and his ‘structuration theory’ where he argues that individuals are purposive actors affected by and affecting structures. Huxham (1996) and her notion of ‘task oriented’ instrumental collaboration’ to get things done’ versus values and institution changing ideological collaboration. References DiMaggio P J and Powell W W (1983) ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields’, American Sociological Review, vol.48, Issue 2, Apr.1983. Giddens A (1979) ‘Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, structure and contradiction in social analysis’, London: The Macmillan Press Ltd. Huxham C (1996) ‘Creating Collaborative Advantage’, London: Sage Publications. |
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