reality, a move towards a stewardship model is likely to be seen as a shift from
a stakeholder to a shareholder focus. This is despite the introduction of limits on
shareholder control such as those outlined in the CIC legislation, which explicitly
demands that community interests should be the main driver of decision-making
rather than financial returns for shareholders (CIC Regulator, 2005). A further rationale
for research into social enterprise governance is that if organisations are shifting from
one governance model to another then the impact that this can have on other elements
of the organisation and its performance should be examined. If the assumption that
is often stated in the governance literature, that governance is critical to an
organisation’s performance (Child and Rodrigues, 2004; Rhodes, 2000), is to be tested
then this is an ideal opportunity to do just that.