Socio-Economic Review, 2019, Vol. 17, No. 1, 195–227 doi: 10.1093/ser/mwz014 Advance Access Publication Date: 18 May 2019 Article Article Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ser/article-abstract/17/1/195/5491577 by guest on 16 November 2019 Social entrepreneurship as field encroachment: how a neoliberal social movement constructed a new field Jason Spicer 1,*, Tamara Kay2 and Marshall Ganz3 1Geography and Planning, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CA; 2Global Affairs and Sociology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA; 3John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA *Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract In explaining the emergence of new strategic action fields, in which social move- ments’ and organizations’ logic, rules and strategies are forged, inter-field dynamics remain under-explored. The case of Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (SEE) shows how new fields can emerge through field encroachment, whereby shifts among overlapping fields create structural opportunities for the ascendency of new fields, which may adapt logics borrowed from adjacent fields to construct legitimacy. SEE leveraged the 1980s’ shift between first-order market and state fields to encroach on the political strategies of community organizing, birthing a neoliberal social move- ment to create a new field addressing social problems using market-based, profit-mo- tivated approaches. With its borrowed veneer of justice, SEE rapidly developed a high academic and public profile over just three decades, despite little evidence its ap- proach to solving social problems works. In encroaching on proven political strategies for solving social problems, it may further undermine democratic practices.