Social enterprises and their social innovation dimensions: insights from Mexico

This thesis investigates three different social enterprise understandings in Mexico and their social innovation compound. The first part of the thesis investigates the organisational dimension and the institutional context of the following three social enterprise understandings: 1. Market-oriented social businesses, 2. Indigenous social enterprises and 3. Non-profit organisations with economic activities. The second part develops a conceptual framework to explain the intersection between social enterprises and social innovation. The framework, developed from a systemic analysis of the social enterprise and social innovation literature, explains the social innovation compound of social enterprises through seven dimensions: 1. Focus of the social innovation, 2. Agency vs structure, 3. Economic model consonance, 4. Knowledge construction and valorisation, 5. Type of governance and distribution of power, 6. Spatial dimension, and 7. Politicising vs depoliticising. The framework uses these dimensions to identify the social innovation approaches of social enterprises, being either radical or instrumental. The third part of the thesis applies the conceptual framework to empirical data collected in the field to explain the social innovation of two social enterprise understandings in Mexico: indigenous social enterprises, and market oriented social businesses.