If social enterprises are to attract investment then it seems inevitable that the
stewardship model of governance will emerge in part to operate as a signal to investors
about the effectiveness of asset management within these organisations. Studies of
corporate governance, and in particular the focus on the stewardship model, are
relevant to social enterprise in that they emphasise the need for organisations to have
mechanisms in place to bring directors to account. The new social enterprise legal form
being encouraged at present, the CIC, explicitly limits accountability within social
enterprises by limiting shareholder voting powers while at the same time offering only
a modest increase in other stakeholder powers (Dunn and Riley, 2004). This has the
potential to open up social enterprises to the threat of the misappropriation of
shareholder assets seen all too often in recent years. Regardless of whether the assets
of social enterprises are in fact owned by shareholders or the community, the point
remains that these assets must be devoted to community benefit, while at the same
time being protected from misappropriation by senior managers