Brief Summary:
Many countries are said to be developing a new policy paradigm of social entrepreneurship or social innovation, where markets are used to deliver pubic services and promote social justice. Advocates of SI claim that this approach outperforms traditional public and voluntary sector responses to ‘wicked’ social problems. However, SI remains a contested concept and subject to various interpretations. This inhibits any coherent evaluation of the impact of SI reforms. Conceptual clarification and rigorous documentation of policies claimed to exemplify SI are required. Hitherto, explorations of the relationship between ideas of SI and their policy implementation have focused on a single country.
The PhD will advance beyond this by tracing and comparing the journeys - and possible departures - from rhetoric to policy implementation in two welfare regimes (one of which will be the UK) to identify the respective influence of ideational and contextual factors in shaping the reality of SI policy. The PhD studentship will apply a mixed method research approach (including discourse analyses of public and policy statements, interviews with policy makers and stakeholders) to provide a comparative perspective on different ideologies of SI and their respective expression in one of two possible policy areas: either financial inclusion or employability.
The PhD will improve understanding of how far SI is a genuine departure in social and public policy and what factors shape its implementation.
For further information please contact Dr Stephen Sinclair: Stephen.Sinclair@???<
mailto:Stephen.Sinclair@gcu.ac.uk>
To apply (by 19th December) please see
http://www.gcu.ac.uk/research/phdresearchopportunities/
Glasgow Caledonian University is a registered Scottish charity, number SC021474
