Institutionalizing social entrepreneurship in regulatory space:
Reporting and disclosure by community interest companies
Alex Nicholls
Said Business School, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
a b s t r a c t
In 2005, the British parliament passed legislation to make available the first new legal form
of incorporation in over a century: the Community Interest Company (CIC). This initiative
represented an important element within a larger set of public policy measures that aimed
to create a more enabling environment for the accelerated growth of social entrepreneurship
and, specifically, social enterprises. In an exploratory study, this paper presents an
analysis of the regulatory space within which the reporting and disclosure practices for
CICs were negotiated. Three elements within the regulatory space are identified as having
explanatory value: regulatory boundaries that set and limit the terms of negotiation
around regulatory practice; the key actors that engage in a process of negotiation around
the establishment of actual practice; the range of debate and conflicting ideas that inform
regulatory negotiation and legitimating consensus. The analysis suggests that a normative
logic of light touch regulation was of particular importance within the wider UK policy context
from within which CICs emerged and that the CIC Regulator acts as a mediator of disclosure
information across multiple user constituencies. Empirically, this paper draws
upon a sample of 80 published CIC annual reports to consider two aspects of CIC reporting:
the quantity of information provided and the type of data presented. These data demonstrate
the limitations and challenges of current CIC regulatory disclosure practices for
key users of reporting information, particularly in terms of perceptions of organizational
legitimacy. Conclusions are drawn concerning these limitations, particularly in terms of
their implications for public policy.
In terms of new research, this paper makes two important contributions. First, it develops
theory in terms of (social) reporting and public policy with respect to the regulatory
mechanisms that relate the two. This has yet to be explored in social entrepreneurship
research. Second, this paper includes a preliminary examination of the reporting practices
of CICs in their policy context, including an analysis of a sample of the publicly available
CIC annual reports that have been filed to date. This data set has yet to be the subject of
any other academic researc
Institutionalizing social entrepreneurship in regulatory space:
Reporting and disclosure by community interest companies
Alex Nicholls
Said Business School, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
a b s t r a c t
In 2005, the British parliament passed legislation to make available the first new legal form
of incorporation in over a century: the Community Interest Company (CIC). This initiative
represented an important element within a larger set of public policy measures that aimed
to create a more enabling environment for the accelerated growth of social entrepreneurship
and, specifically, social enterprises. In an exploratory study, this paper presents an
analysis of the regulatory space within which the reporting and disclosure practices for
CICs were negotiated. Three elements within the regulatory space are identified as having
explanatory value: regulatory boundaries that set and limit the terms of negotiation
around regulatory practice; the key actors that engage in a process of negotiation around
the establishment of actual practice; the range of debate and conflicting ideas that inform
regulatory negotiation and legitimating consensus. The analysis suggests that a normative
logic of light touch regulation was of particular importance within the wider UK policy context
from within which CICs emerged and that the CIC Regulator acts as a mediator of disclosure
information across multiple user constituencies. Empirically, this paper draws
upon a sample of 80 published CIC annual reports to consider two aspects of CIC reporting:
the quantity of information provided and the type of data presented. These data demonstrate
the limitations and challenges of current CIC regulatory disclosure practices for
key users of reporting information, particularly in terms of perceptions of organizational
legitimacy. Conclusions are drawn concerning these limitations, particularly in terms of
their implications for public policy.
In terms of new research, this paper makes two important contributions. First, it develops
theory in terms of (social) reporting and public policy with respect to the regulatory
mechanisms that relate the two. This has yet to be explored in social entrepreneurship
research. Second, this paper includes a preliminary examination of the reporting practices
of CICs in their policy context, including an analysis of a sample of the publicly available
CIC annual reports that have been filed to date. This data set has yet to be the subject of
any other academic researc
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