Capital Conversions in the Interaction Space between Social Entrepreneurship and Academic Field

Abstract

The paper examines the possibilities of capital conversion arising from the interaction of social enterprises and the academic field in Croatia. The objectives of this paper are multifold. The study investigates the extent to which social enterprises collaborate with academic institutions, identifies the dominant forms of the cooperation between them and examines the potential of capital conversions between their different forms through the cooperation. Additionally, the research analyses the direction and dynamics of knowledge spillover between the two fields, particularly focusing on the constraining conditions to such processes. The theoretical framework of the research combines Bourdieu's theory of practice (i.e. the concepts of capital and field) to understand the relations of actors and the used resources. This is complemented by the knowledge spillover theory, to explain how the knowledge circulates among the actors. Methodological framework relies on a qualitative research design. The empirical data were collected through phenomenological in-depth semi-structured interviews that were conducted among 30 social enterprises operating across various economic activities, with many of them focusing on the providing community services.  The findings show multiple channels of cooperation of social enterprises with the academic community, including academic research in the field of social entrepreneurship, provision of services by faculties to social enterprises, joint partnerships in EU-funded projects, guest lectures and presenting social enterprises to students, supervision of students' theses and the use of social enterprises as teaching and practice bases. In addition to conventional, unidirectional knowledge transfer from academia to practical, the study also identifies reverse knowledge spillovers from social enterprises to the academic field. These results further demonstrate the interconversions of capital arising from the interaction of social entrepreneurs and the academic actors. However, the obstacles to greater use of knowledge spillover to improve the efficiency of social enterprises exist primarily due to the limited financial resources.