Social Enterprise in Local Development: Comparing Models of Social Partnerships in Neighborhood Policies in France

Abstract: This thesis shows that social enterprise plays a key institutional role in bridging the cross-sectorial gaps in local development within the larger context of local developmental governance. Societal value drives development and cross-sectorial gaps prevent local development frameworks from integrating the private, public, and civil sectors of society effectively. Policy that takes into consideration the social, economic and environmental aspects of development is the most effective in creating value to society. In this paper, I will show that local developmental policy that focuses on supporting social entrepreneurship in France, and the social partnerships that allow social enterprise to work across sectors, is effective in creating value. I take a whole-system and participatory approach to evaluating institutional value to society from a policy perspective. I have developed specific indicators for this evaluation that take into account this whole-system approach and the stakeholders from all three sectors of society. My evaluation suggests that traditional compartmentalization of development policy into economic, social and environmental divisions prevents policy to effectively create societal value. Development policy aimed at institutions, such as social enterprise, that are not compartmentalized in this way are difficult to evaluate due to the complexity of the un-compartmentalized reality of local development. Social enterprise, while potentially more effective, is limited in its potential value to society because of this compartmentalization, which not only inhibits the institution itself but the positive developmental effects of their social partnerships. For developmental policy to be more effective at creating value it must have more overlap between the policy realms and more participation and thus cooperation among the sectors of society.