Government and Public Policy

Even as the social entrepreneurship movement makes strides forward, the ultimate success of any single innovation faces the stark reality that no real market exists for promoting the growth of these innovations—which instead depend for scale more on a political economy than a market one.

Government shapes disruptive innovation as it dominates funding in most areas of social policy. Given the inherently political nature of public expenditures and a culture that rewards compliance while often ignoring the voices of clients, programs and policies that offer no evidence of success still remain funded year after year. Incumbent providers, confident of their intentions, naturally seek to protect their stake, while government bureaucracies protect these webs of invested interests in a variety of ways that keep innovative problem-solvers from breaking through and supplying better alternatives. Moreover, government sees its role as offering dependable responses that avoid risk. This view creates a culture that represses change and decreases the public’s acceptance of any innovation that might end up with less than perfect results.

How can an elected or appointed public official act as a civic entrepreneur in a way that unlocks transformative public value? The article highlights a case study from New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg and School Chancellor Joel Klein generated space for reform in two bold ways—the creation of an innovation fund and the “open sourcing” of innovation, inviting social entrepreneurs to play an important role inside government structures.

This paper focuses on privatisation during the 1980s to the present day, with special emphasis on the role of the social enterprise in the area of commissioning.

In America and Britain governments hope that a partnership with “social entrepreneurs” can solve some of society’s most intractable problems Read the full article here