Can marketing contribute to sustainable social ...

Social Enterprise Journal Can marketing contribute to sustainable social enterprise? Madeline Powell Stephen P. Osborne

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To cite this document: Madeline Powell Stephen P. Osborne , (2015),"Can marketing contribute to sustainable social enterprise?", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 11 Iss 1 pp. 24 - 46 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-01-2014-0009 Downloaded on: 15 September 2015, At: 08:01 (PT) References: this document contains references to 80 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 187 times since 2015*

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SEJ 11,1

Can marketing contribute to sustainable social enterprise?

24

The York Management School, University of York, York, UK, and

Madeline Powell Stephen P. Osborne Business School, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

Received 31 January 2014 Revised 27 June 2014 Accepted 13 October 2014

Abstract Downloaded by University of York At 08:01 15 September 2015 (PT)

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the role of marketing as a route to sustainability for social enterprises providing public services. It examines the tensions between the economic and social objectives, both of social enterprises and of marketing. It concludes by offering a new model of the role of marketing for sustainable social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach – This paper used the case study approach which included four cases. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the chief executives of each social enterprise. The cases were classified by age. Findings – The paper demonstrates that while marketing potentially has much to offer in terms of organisational resilience for social enterprises, its application is currently undermined by its misunderstanding in practise within a “product-dominant” business logic. Despite this, the study finds a strong element of the unconscious application of marketing by social enterprises. Originality/value – The implications of this are discussed in the context of the “public service-dominant” business logic that is currently emerging in public management, and recommendations are made for policy and practice as to how to enhance the contribution of marketing, both to sustainable social enterprises and to public services delivery. Keywords Marketing, Sustainability, Public service-dominant logic, Public services, Relationship marketing, Social enterprises Paper type Research paper

Social Enterprise Journal Vol. 11 No. 1, 2015 pp. 24-46 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1750-8614 DOI 10.1108/SEJ-01-2014-0009

Introduction The policy trajectory in England over the past decade has contained a strong strand, emphasising the potential and actual role of social enterprises (SEs) in delivering public services. On the one hand, this has been part of an on-going process of the evolution of plural public service provision that has been captured within the New Public Governance paradigm (Osborne, 2010). On the other hand, it has also represented a privilege of SEs in the English policy discourse above other forms of third-sector organisations (TSOs) in the provision of public services (Chew and Lyon, 2013). SEs, it is currently argued, are more sustainable than “traditional” TSOs because of their more rigorous application of business techniques and models (Simmons, 2008) and are more able to contribute to the development of resilient public services, especially in the current environment of austerity and financial constraint. This discourse is explored further below. Notwithstanding this English policy imperative for SEs, the current state of research both about their sustainability and their potential to contribute to public services is limited and contested (Nyssens, 2006; Teasdale et al., 2013). This paper is a contribution


to the on-going debate about their contribution. The aim of its underpinning research is to examine the nature of marketing practice within SEs and its functional role within them, to identify the extent of marketing knowledge that their managers utilise and to evaluate its impact upon their sustainability. It contributes both a conceptual insight, in terms of how marketing is conceptualised within the SE sector, and a functional one, in terms of its impact upon SEs. Its central research question is: “does the application of marketing techniques to social enterprises impact upon their sustainability?” Drawing upon Pharoah et al. (2004; see also Guthrie et al., 2010), we define organisational sustainability here as balancing organisational income and expenditure while meeting social objectives. It should be emphasised at the outset that the focus in this paper is upon SEs that operate with public service markets in England. As a wealth of literature has demonstrated, this is only one element of the SE sector as a whole, and a comparatively recent one at that. Nonetheless, it is highly significant in terms of public policy import given to it by the UK Government (see Thompson and Doherty, 2006; Teasdale, 2010 for a more detailed discussion of this sectoral and policy contexts and their substance). Specifically, the paper explores the extent to which SEs uses marketing models and approaches to enhance their own sustainability and their contribution to public services delivery. Based upon a cross-sectional case study of SEs working in the field of social care in England, it finds little conscious utilisation of marketing by SEs – although, in fact, much “unconscious” marketing is engaged[1]. The paper argues that this is because the application of marketing to public services overall has, to date, concentrated primarily upon marketing models and approaches drawn for the manufacturing, rather than the services, sector. This has undermined its reach and impact, as many service managers within SEs cannot see the utility of such manufacturing-based models for the services that they provide. Consequently, this paper argues for an alternative approach for SEs that draws upon the public service-dominant business logic (Osborne et al., 2013, 2014). This reformulates the marketing task not as one of selling a product but rather as one of building and sustaining key relationships to achieve the strategic objectives of SEs as public service providers. This, it argues, is a substantive contribution for SEs to the delivery of sustainable public services, rather than the sterile repackaging of existing manufacturing practices within a new etymology. The remainder of this paper explores this issue further through analysis of a cross-sectional case study and is in four parts. Its focus is explicitly upon SEs involved in the provision of public services rather than upon SEs as social businesses within commercial markets[2]. The first part briefly explores the role of SEs in the provision and reform of public services in England. Part two then examines the concept of marketing in a public service and an SE context and identifies some key issues for its application to SEs. The third part of the paper reports an exploratory case study carried out in England to explore these issues further. The final part draws key lessons from this body of literature. To address its research question, this paper considers two sub-questions –is, and how is, marketing being applied as part of the activities of SEs, and to what extent is and/or can it contribute to the sustainability of SEs as public service providers? It concludes that a key problem for SEs is that they have drawn upon the wrong body of marketing theory in addressing their sustainability, and this has limited its impact. As an alternative, both public service-dominant business logic and relationship marketing

Sustainable social enterprise 25

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26

are drawn upon to pose an alternative model for marketing practice for SEs and that will enhance their sustainability as public service providers. Social enterprises and the public services reform agenda in England There is a tremendous debate about the definitions of SEs (Lyon and Sepulveda, 2009; Defourny and Nyssens, 2010) and the extent to which they actually straddle the divide between the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Teasdale (2010), in particular, has explored both the comparative dimensions of this debate (between the UK and the USA) and the changing topography of social enterprise within the English context. In this latter context, he has identified its early roots within the cooperative and community business movements of the late 1990s and the later encroachment of social business into the SE policy arena from 1999 onwards (Brown, 2003). To an extent, both of these communities shared a view of SE that combined the concept of “social business” with that of “community benefit”. Subsequently though, Teasdale charts the spread of the SE concept to include also the use of business practices by more “traditional” TSOs to achieve their objectives, including in relation to obtaining and fulfilling government contracts for delivering public services (Davies, 2008; Peattie and Morley, 2008). In this latter context, SE has become seen as more of a set of enterprising activities or managerial practices rather than as an organisational form (Chew and Lyon, 2013), which has shifted the focus away from its roots in the cooperative movement. This paper adopts this latter focus upon managerial activity as the defining feature of SE and considers whether the managerial practices of self-professed SEs in England do indeed use a distinctive cluster of such skills. It explores, in particular, one element of these activities and practices – the utilisation of marketing by SEs. Given its focus upon SEs in England, a working definition of SEs, as organisational forms, will be used here derived from the UK Government and embedded within the above policy trajectory. This is that they are “businesses trading for a social purpose whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose or in the community rather than established to maximise profits for shareholders and owners” (DTI, 2002). Social care services in England are increasingly being delivered by SEs, as defined by the Department of Trade and Industry. The Small Business Survey (2010), for example, estimated that there were over 62,000 such SEs in existence in 2010 and contributing close to £24 billion to the national economy. Despite this growth, however, there is currently a dearth of evidence about the sustainability of SEs as key providers of public services. There is, for example, uncertainty about their ability to manage the tension of addressing both social and economic objectives (Bull, 2006; Russell and Scott, 2007), about their capacity to work together as public service providers (Moizer and Tracey, 2010) and their ability to address social exclusion through business-oriented models (Teasdale, 2010). Because of these contradictions, SEs are faced with complex challenges in trying to achieve a “double bottom line” of sustainable social and economic contributions (Emerson and Twersky, 1996). Pharoah et al. (2004; see also Anheier, 2000) found a significant number of tensions for SEs as a result of these contradictions. Moreover, beyond the clash of social and economic conceptions of success, they also found that many SE leaders often had limited actual experience of the application of private sector business skills and that this limited their effectiveness in meeting the requirement of the double bottom line. These issues informed the research questions, above, explored in this study.


Marketing public services and social enterprises Marketing and public services As government and TSOs have increasingly worked in partnership to deliver public services, new challenges have been raised for the practice of marketing within public service organisations (PSOs)[3] (Wright et al., 2012). Addressing these tasks is complicated, however, by the considerable ambiguity surrounding the role of marketing within PSOs. Indeed the very existence of a “marketing function” within PSOs is contentious in its own right. McLaughlin et al. (2009) have argued that in England, marketing activity has been embraced by many PSOs, albeit with considerable reluctance, as an inevitable corollary to the public sector reform agenda of the past 30 years – with its dominant notions of consumerism and the “marketisation” of public services, and rather than as a desirable management discipline in its own right (Walsh, 1994; Burton 1999)[4]. In doing so, it has neglected the opportunities offered for its development through alternative conceptualisations of marketing that take institutions and networks, rather than consumers, as the central unit of analysis. McLaughlin et al. (2009) have further argued that public services marketing practice over this period has been dominated by transactional models of marketing (Laing, 2003) that have belied the growing relational complexity of the above trends. Nowhere is there any evidence of a willingness to test the suitability and/or robustness of alternative models of marketing that might meet the needs of PSOs operating within the current plural public policy environment, with its emphasis on partnerships and relational contracting and governance (Erridge and Greer, 2002; Schwartz, 2005). In the 1960s, marketing was predominantly presented as the key managerial discipline across all sectors of society (Kotler and Levy, 1969). This position has subsequently been assumed by many marketing scholars and practitioners and has become the starting point for drawing marketing into the public domain. However, this predominant perspective has increasingly been subject to an evolving ambiguity about the boundaries of marketing for PSOs. Having argued previously for marketing as a generic organisational function, key advocates have subsequently shifted their ground to introduce an element of marketing conditionality into the debate (Kotler et al., 2009). Crucially, these ideas about the conditionality of marketing exchange are rooted in classical economics and a model of exchange theory that supports a purely transactional view of marketing, with the firm as a unitary entity operating in isolation from other organisations. This perspective upon marketing is based upon a model of discrete transactions that have “a distinct beginning, short duration and sharp ending by performance” (Morgan and Hunt, 1994, p. 1). It has been criticised in the broader management literature, however, through the concepts of the “new competition” (Best, 1993) and “new institutionalism” (Powell and DiMaggio, 1991). Drawing upon the work of Benson (1975) on resource-dependency theory and Williamson (1985) on transaction cost analysis, these critiques posit a model of network-based organisations that paradoxically compete by collaborating with other organisations to lever in information, resources and capabilities. Such a model introduces new levels of complexity to exchange relationships that are perhaps beyond the scope and competencies of traditional transactional models of marketing and which, it is argued here, is highly relevant to the practice of marketing within contemporary PSOs, including SEs.


SEJ 11,1


28

This is particularly relevant in the public services domain in England. It was not until the 1980s, when the “marketisation” of public services under the then Conservative government commenced in earnest, that attention was turned to the potential benefits of marketing for PSOs operating in market and quasi-market conditions (Le Grand, 2007; Scrivens, 1991; Sheaff, 1991; Walsh, 1991). This marketisation was thus a core driver for the growth of the marketing function within British PSOs. As such, it has had a profound influence upon its trajectory since then. Central to this influence was the classical economic principle of exchange discussed above, that assumed market relations to be based upon discrete and autonomous transactions and with little thought to the governance of reciprocal or on-going transactions and relationships within networks of public service providers (Hindmoor, 1998; Walsh, 1991). As a consequence of these transactional assumptions, the marketing behaviour of individual PSOs has been highly individualistic in nature, and self-seeking, arguably to the detriment of whole public service system. Further, individual PSOs, and especially TSOs, have often been drawn into market scenarios for public services that have privileged competition and adversarial relationships over collaboration both between PSOs and within them (Palmer, 2001; McLaughlin et al., 2009). This recent history throws up two challenges for the place of marketing in public services delivery. First, that its originating context of transactional and operational management has constrained the development of marketing within PSOs to a focus on intra-organisational and operational debates. This has crowded out consideration of more sophisticated models of it as a basis for exploring its possible role in shaping the strategic and outward-facing behaviour of PSOs. Second, the place of marketing within PSOs has become a highly contested one. In TSOs, for example, the remit of the marketing function can often be limited to fundraising alone, rather than integrated into their strategic positioning activity (Chew, 2006; see also Akchin, 2001). Similarly, inside governmental organisations, marketing professionals have often had to “sail under another banner” to have an impact on strategic direction and positioning (Piercy and Cravens, 1995; Laing and McKee, 2000). Responding to these challenges, McLaughlin et al. (2009) contended that the conventional transactional notion of marketing that developed from manufacturing and a product-dominant logic has failed to accommodate the complex actuality of managing public services delivery. This accommodation can be achieved, however, by attention to the rich history of marketing in the service, rather than manufacturing, sector. Here the paradigm of relationship marketing (McGuire, 2012) has evolved. This crucial development will be returned to later in this paper. Marketing and social enterprises Notwithstanding the policy assertions of the widespread adoption of business management disciplines, including marketing, by SEs, there are actually relatively few studies that have looked at the contribution marketing could make to social enterprise (exceptions include Shaw, 2004; Bull and Crompton, 2005; Bull, 2006; Chew and Osborne, 2008). This paper builds upon this work and explores it in a novel context – that of social care provision. Shaw (2004) is especially important. She explored marketing within the SE context and discussed whether this should or could be called “entrepreneurial”. She subsequently outlined three sector-specific factors which could influence the marketing


effectiveness of SEs: “local embeddedness, a not for profit orientation and [meeting] challenges posed by social exclusion” (p. 203). Importantly, she also found that the marketing activities of SEs were rarely planned and often conducted “unconsciously”. However, the reasons for this are unclear in this study: is this because SEs and their leaders were inherently entrepreneurial or is it rather that marketing was seen as an emergent strategy through which to cope with environmental complexity? As McLaughlin et al. (2009) did in the case of public services in general, she concludes by considering whether alternate conceptions of marketing might best capture and contribute to the sustainability of SEs and which conceptions can enhance the development of relationships with local communities and other PSOs, rather than concentrate upon competitive advantage alone. She does not though take the further step of linking this to the application of relationship marketing by social enterprises. Bull and Crompton (2005) presented a different critique of marketing practice within SEs. They argued that a marketing approach did indeed exist in SEs but that its impact was limited by the lack of resources devoted to it. Hence, SEs found it difficult to implement the marketing strategy that they had planned. Significantly, a further study by Bull (2006) found that marketing was more embedded within SEs where its primary marketing focus was upon relationship building rather than upon achieving competitive advantage. This latter study also found that almost a third of SEs had no explicit marketing capacity whatsoever and that this put them at a disadvantage in competing and negotiating for public service delivery contracts, especially against private sector contractors. While the dedicated literature on marketing and SEs is limited, there is nonetheless an important broader literature on non-profit marketing. This has its roots in the US context and has been extensively developed (Kotler, 1979; Kotler and Andreasen, 1996; Drucker, 2001). A consistent theme in this literature has been that non-profit organisations have a poor understanding of marketing, invariably seeing it as related primarily to fundraising or promotion (Kotler, 1979, Akchin, 2001). Three recent studies have been particularly relevant in the context of this current paper. First, Vazquez et al. (2002) found only limited understanding of the significance of market orientation for non-profit organisations. Second, Macmillan et al. (2005) explore the significance of relationship marketing for fundraising activity by non-profit organisations, proposing developments to the model to adapt it to the non-profit context. Finally, and most pertinently in our context, Dolnicar and Lazarevski (2009) evaluated Kotler’s (1979, p. 288) original contention that non-profit organisations had little understanding of marketing in a services context and concluded that “non-profit organisations still demonstrate a distinct lack of understanding of what the principles of marketing are and largely focus their efforts on sales and promotional activities”. These insights from the wider, non-profit marketing literature are important. This present paper will hence explore their relevance for SEs. Interim conclusions The place of marketing within both PSOs and non-profit organisations has been a contested one since its introduction to public services management. Its over-reliance on transactional and product-dominant models of marketing has also, in practice, limited its impact. Within the SE field, there is a further lack of evidence both about its utilisation and its effect upon the sustainability of SEs. What evidence there is, is



SEJ 11,1

contradictory, but, nonetheless, suggests that marketing is neither well understood within SEs nor has it been effectively harnessed to a sustainable business model for them. This issue is explored now further in the empirical research presented in this paper.

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Marketing and SEs: four case studies Methodology This paper utilises a qualitative research methodology to interrogate its research questions. This approach is highly apposite here for several reasons. First, the focus of this paper is the exploration of the process of marketing by service managers and their enactment of an explicit marketing orientation. Qualitative research is particularly adept at exploring such issues of process and enactment rather than multi-variable relationships. It enables the researcher to study naturalistic, real-life settings through the combination of a range of data sources (Patton, 2009; Liamputtong, 2009). Second, it allows the researcher to explore differing perceptions of reality by key actors to understand how they construct and make sense of their reality – and, subsequently, act within it (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994; Silverman, 2010). Finally, in a case study context, especially, qualitative research allows theory to be built up from empirical evidence, creating conceptual understanding (Eisendhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). The approach adopted here is a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). This allowed the study to build theory inductively, starting from the ground upwards, rather than test pre-hypothesised relationships by multivariate analysis (Bansal and Corley, 2012). This is, we argue, highly appropriate to explore the emergent phenomena that are the focus of this paper. Research methods. Four SEs in the north-east of England were identified through convenience sampling for this exploratory cross-sectional study. They were all organisations that explicitly identified themselves as “SEs” rather than as any other form of third-sector organisation. This focus allowed the study to explore the congruity, or otherwise between the social enterprising activity of these organisations and their explicit organisational nomenclature. The authors acknowledge and emphasise that the four cases are not part of a representative but an exploratory, convenience sample. Nonetheless, the four cases were also chosen to represent a range of experiences in delivering social care services, while the social care field itself was chosen as it is now a comparatively mature public services market in England, with a diverse experience of contractual and business arrangements (Department of Health, 2012). This cross-sectional approach allowed for a more robust body of exploratory evidence than a single case and also allowed similarities and differences between the cases to be highlighted (Yin, 2009). This dimension was important in this study. While the social care market is indeed relatively mature, the place of SEs in this market, and the role of their marketing practises in their sustainability, is much less established. Interviews were conducted with the founder of the four SEs, and an interview guide was developed beforehand to provide structure to these interviews. These interviews were supplemented by further documentary analysis of internal documents from these SEs. The characteristics of the four cases are displayed in Appendix. The interviews explored perceptions of marketing and branding, their applicability to SEs and their impact upon service delivery and management. To analyse the data, the


interviews were transcribed. Initially, the data were sorted into broad categories. Large sets of data were “lumped” into these categories, allowing the authors to analyse and code these categories sentence by sentence to identify their relevant foci and how they related to those broad issues identified earlier in the literature review. The codes came directly from the data, rather than specified at the outset from the review of the literature. This enabled the authors to ground their codes within the data; once the codes had been identified, the authors revisited the literature to base their findings within current theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Burnard, 1991). Examples of the codes that occurred throughout data analysis included “unconscious relationship marketing”, “tensions”, “direct marketing”, “background”, “strategic position” and “added value”. Marketing documents obtained from the enterprises were then used to compare what was set in the interviews to what the cases did in practise. Unquestionably, further work is required to validate the full generalisability of the findings of this study. Nonetheless, it offers a first and novel exploration of the marketing strategies and practices of SEs and how this contributes to their sustainability within markets for public services in the English context.


Findings Three broad themes were identified in the analysis of the findings of this study. These were the tension of social and economic aims for a sustainable business strategy for SEs, the extent of marketing knowledge within SEs and the scale of marketing across SEs. These are now discussed in turn. The tension of social and economic aims for a sustainable business strategy for SEs A key theme that emerged for the SEs in this study was the tension between their social objectives and the business means through which to achieve them (Table II). An interesting divergence of opinion was identified on this theme in the study. Both “Change” and “Helping Families” believed that there was no such tension because social aims should always take precedence over economic ones, even if this meant making the business less sustainable in the long term. They both identified this lack of sustainability as a real risk, as articulated by Interviewee A: The social aims of the organisations do have priority over the financial needs to be sustainable, the social aims dominate, we’re not sustainable at all even in the way that we have set ourselves up but the social aims still take priority (Interviewee A).

Both of these SEs also made the point that they were not “in business” to make money and that if their social aim could not be addressed then they would prefer to dissolve the SE rather than use it to raise finance for an alternative objective (Table I).

Case organisations

View on tension

“Change” “Classical” “Chef’s project” “Helping families”

No tension–social aims should dominate Identified a tension–argued that economic and social aims should be balanced No tension–economic aims should dominate No Tension–social aims should dominate

Table I.

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“Classical” had the opposite view, however, believing that there was no tension: the economic aims should always dominate, as it was impossible to meet their social ones without such sustainability: No I do not think that the economic and social aims should be balanced, you have got to meet the economic aims to make the social aim happen else it won’t (Interviewee B).

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Only “Chef’s Project” identified a tension in putting one aim in front of the other, believing that the best way to is to keep both of the aims balanced:


I think if we are all about making it succeed financially, then there are a number of things we do as a SE that go against that. Similarly, if the financial aims are not taken into consideration then there is no way that the business can remain sustainable and the social cause cannot be met which is the most important thing. I don’t want to be on the fence but I definitely think that they need to be balanced else tensions do occur (Interviewee C).

“Chef’s Project” used its income from commercial cookery classes to fund its work with disadvantaged groups – a classic SE strategy. However, it found an unavoidable tension in regards to its“double bottom line”. The cost of food ingredients for cookery class was quite substantial. For commercial classes, this was not a problem, as the students paid for these. It was an issue for the classes for disadvantaged groups though. One of the Board members of the SE was particularly concerned with the cost of these ingredients for disadvantaged individuals – yet the policy within Chef’s Project that they should treat all their students the same, irrespective of their backgrounds. This produced a real clash between the commercial and social aims and cultures of the SE: People think that you have boosted the price of the courses when in fact the added value is intangible and that is a real marketing challenge (Interviewee C).

Of the four cases, this was the only one to feel such an innate tension in its business model. The range of views on the balance between social and economic aims does raise an important question about the role and nature of marketing within SEs. If it is seen as being concerned primarily with the marketisation of public services and their commoditisation, then it does reduce the marketing role to a transactional one of positioning these services within a competitive market, as identified previously by McLaughlin et al. (2009). This was the approach taken by “Chef’s Project”, and it lead to tensions for the SE. The alternative approach is to accept that there is a relationship between the social and economic aims of SEs and to consider marketing as a possible means to which resolve this value issue. This was a route open to the other three SEs and is discussed further below. The extent of marketing knowledge within SEs The data suggested that the founders and leaders of these four SEs varied between a those with basic to competent knowledge of marketing – although none possessed sophisticated understanding (Table AI). Significantly, all interviewees stated at the beginning of their interview, “I don’t know much about marketing!” This reinforced the notion that the leaders interviewed, only viewed marketing as a selling activity. They did not recognise the benefit of focussing their marketing efforts upon targeting specific stakeholder groups and building relationships within those groups (with the exception of Helping Families, discussed further below). This corroborates the research of Bull

(2006) who similarly found a spread of awareness of marketing across SEs – although, again, none possessed sophisticated understanding (Table II). The interviewees in this study had quite clear pre-conceptions about the potential contribution, or not, of marketing to their sustainability. Interviewee C asserted that marketing was “just a bunch of promises”, while Interviewee D said that they had “been a little uneasy about getting into marketing and becoming too commercial”. By contrast, Interviewee B was rather more upbeat about the potential contribution of marketing to the work of their SE:


No, because at the end of the day it’s about using whatever tools are available to you to enable people we support to have a better life, that is all it is about (Interviewee B).

A key potential variable for the implementation of marketing by SEs identified in this study was the extent of prior business and marketing experience of the interviewees. Interviewee B had had such prior experience, while the other three had none. This prior experience allowed the interviewee to be more open to the contribution of marketing. For the other three interviewees, however, their experience was wholly of either a social or voluntary nature. This appeared to provide a value basis from which they rejected the possibility of marketing providing a possible route to sustainability for their SEs. As Interviewee D ruefully noted in rejecting the possible contribution of marketing for their SE: “[this] is my own personal bias which I probably shouldn’t have!” Certainly it was remarkable that three of the leaders of these SEs here rejected the application of marketing as a business discipline despite their apparently explicit adoption of an enterprising approach as social enterprises. This suggested a basic disjuncture between the adoption of “social enterprise” as a useful label for their organisations and the actual practice of enterprising managerial skills and techniques. The scale of marketing across SEs A particular issue in this study was whether SEs adopted marketing as a holistic discipline across their entire organisation or whether they were more selective in its application. Three of the SEs felt that marketing was a set approach that could only be applied in a formal away across the entire organisation. Helping Families was different though and located marketing as primarily applied to developing its relationships with its key stakeholders: Our greatest marketing strategy was personal networks and contacts because a colleague of mine that I started with has been doing this for twenty years and was known personally by judges, solicitors, the children’s court support service and CAFCASS support services and our marketing strategy was the knowledge of us doing this really well for a long time (Interviewee D).

This was an important strategy for Helping Families due to the nature of work the SE was involved in. It was important that its marketing was focussed upon targeting the appropriate people in which to building relationships with, as well as protecting the confidentiality of its clients: I suspect that there is a bit of me that’s old style voluntary sector which is keep anonymous, keep quiet when families come here. I doubt anyone in these houses knows what they are coming in for, which is key for this type of service as no-one wants to be seen as going to a service which specialises in working with families where there is major conflict (Interviewee D).


Table II.

Medium, had knowledge of direct marketing, how to create awareness of the brand and to utilise the benefits of social media sites to keep in contact with customers Medium, knowledge of direct marketing and how to create awareness for the brand. There are plans to do a larger marketing strategy which focusses on their “added benefit” Basic, mainly direct marketing

“Classical”

“Helping families”

“Chef’s project”

Basic, mainly of direct marketing and setting up a website

“Change”

Marketing knowledge

Minimal, not done consciously but an unconscious cost leadership strategy has been implemented

Minimal, not done consciously but a differentiation strategy has been implemented unconsciously

Minimal, not done consciously but a differentiation strategy has been implemented unconsciously

Minimal, not done consciously

Marketing strategy: strategic positioning

None

Minimal, not done consciously, chiefly through mailing lists

Minimal, not done consciously – chiefly mailing lists Minimal, not done consciously – loyalty cards, mailing lists through social media sites

Marketing strategy: relationship marketing

Medium, chiefly logo creation

Minimal, chiefly logo creation and plans for a more integrated brand with the organisation

Minimal, not done consciously – chiefly logo creation and raising awareness through events Minimal, chiefly logo creation, and raising awareness through events

Marketing strategy: branding

34

Case organisations


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Two issues are important here. First, Helping Families was the one SE that had done least in adopting what it considered to the formal discipline of marketing and which had least knowledge of marketing across the organisation. Second, and despite this, in reality, it was clearly practising a form of relationship marketing that was predicated upon its need to make enduring relationships to ensure its sustainability into the future. In comparison with the other cases, through such activity, it was now very well known throughout the professional and local communities and it maintained that this contributed to its long-term sustainability. It was, in effect, practising a relationship marketing strategy aimed at developing and maintaining its relationships with its key stakeholders rather than one concerned with selling their services as pre-determined commodities. The implications of this “unconscious” relationship marketing approach, to use the terminology of Shaw, is discussed further below. Discussion and conclusions How useful is marketing for SEs? Prior literature identified that marketing could have a significant contribution to the management and sustainability of SEs. However, this contribution was predicated upon adopting a public service-dominant logic and a relationship marketing approach by SEs, rather than a transactional one focussed upon selling discrete services as commodities. This exploratory cross-sectional study has reinforced this literature and suggested that marketing has a potential contribution to make to SEs, but that this contribution is, to date, largely unrecognised or misunderstood. In practice, the level of actual understanding of marketing as a management discipline is relatively low amongst the leaders of SEs. Significantly, it is seen as an approach primarily to do with selling services than with managing relationships (and the one organisation that did this, did not actually denote this as marketing activity!). As such, its present contribution to sustainable practice by SEs is limited. Further, as long as SEs continue to perceive marketing within a product-dominant rather than within a (public) service-dominant business logic, then this contribution is likely to remain so. This is a key issue for the future application of marketing by SEs. Of especial interest was that each case study SE believed that they did little actual marketing activity – but that this perception was belied by the actuality of their work. This included a range of marketing approaches being adopted including clarifying their niche markets, creating and articulating a value base and “service promise” for their service, communicating with service users and building and sustaining relationships with key stakeholders. This evidence of unconscious marketing supports the prior work of Shaw (2004) at an earlier time who found a similar lack of conscious marketing but significant unconscious marketing. What is remarkable is that there appears to have been little change in this pattern over almost a decade of the growth of the role of SEs in social care markets in England. This issue is addressed in the conclusions to this paper. How well is marketing understood in SEs? It was striking in this study that the one interviewee who had experience of using marketing in the private sector was less averse to its use for SEs. The three chief executives who all came from a social care or voluntary background, though, were significantly more sceptical about its possible contribution and were more articulate about its clash with the social values of their organisation. Again, this confirms the


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earlier work by Stride and Lee (2007) who similarly found resistance by SEs to marketing concepts such as “brand” because they were perceived to be undermining to their social values. This perception is also replicated in parts of the SE literature above (Blackmore, 2004; Harris et al., 2001, Pharoah, 2003). A key conclusion here is the enduring confusion between the marketisation of public services, which was agreed by respondents to be antipathetic to the social values of SEs and the use of marketing as a managerial discipline to support the enactment of these values and the achievement of the social missions of SEs. Further, there continues to be a mistaken identification of marketing with a product-dominant approach concerned with selling rather than with a service-dominant approach concerned with the governance of enduring relationships in providing public services. As long as this misidentification continues, then the contribution of marketing to the sustainability of SEs is indeed questionable. Rather SEs need to adopt a public service-dominant business logic (Osborne et al., 2013, 2014) that emphasises the nature of services as processes and not as tangible products, the simultaneity of production and consumption in the delivery of public services, the significance of a relational rather than transactional approach to service delivery and centrality of co-production in the service delivery process. This has significant implications both for the adoption of marketing within SEs, if it is to contribute to their long-term sustainability. Adopting a transactional “selling” approach derived from the marketing of tangible manufactured products is not going to contribute to sustainable SEs. Rather the emphasis must be upon adopting the relational marketing model that has emerged from the services sector and that emphasises approaches to cultivating enduring profitable relationships as part of the service process (and also terminating these, if necessary). This point is pursued in the next section. How business-like are SEs – and are they sustainable? What was remarkable in this study was the lack of business values embedded in these self-styled “social enterprises”. Like other studies, it has identified a clear disjuncture between the adoption of the “social enterprise” label and the practice of “enterprising” organisational management. One possible explanation is that the adoption of the SE label has not been a result of a commitment to such an enterprising model of sustainable managerial practice. Rather, it has primarily been a response to a public policy trajectory that has privileged the SEs for the provision of public services in the belief that such organisations can contribute to sustainable public services – although, as has been identified above, with a questionable evidence base both to support this assertion and to differentiate SEs from more traditional forms of TSO that use enterprising managerial skills but eschew the SE label (Teasdale, 2010). This possible explanation requires further specification and examination. Returning to this current study, with one exception, it found that the leaders of these four case-study SEs in the social care field lacked both knowledge and expertise of business practice – and yet were operating in an increasingly competitive market for social care services in England (Department of Health, 2012). Moreover, and significantly, “business practice” was invariably equated with a product-dominant perception that marketing was about the selling of tangible products. The concept of a body of dedicated service management business skills, concerned with building service


relationships that contributed to enduring organisational sustainability, was found to be entirely absent. This does raise a question about the actual sustainability of SEs within this competitive social care marketplace. Certainly, both Pharoah et al. (2004) and Bull (2006) have argued previously that many self-professed “social entrepreneurs” actually have little business or marketing expertise and do therefore require substantial business support and training to survive in these competitive markets. Adopting the “social enterprise” label alone is not sufficient, especially in those social care markets characterised by high levels of private sector commercial penetration. The example of Helping Families is instructive here. It used a business model that was dependent upon it offering the cheapest service compared to its competitors – yet without any analysis of what its service promise and offering was, of what its main customer requirements were or of how this related to its cost recovery. As such, despite offering such a comparatively cheap service, it was struggling to survive – because this market position bore no relation to either market needs or its costs. Moreover, its chief executive openly confessed his hostility to the adoption of marketing as a way to resolve its difficulties because of the clash with their social values that he perceived. It does seem, therefore, that despite being self-proclaimed “social businesses”, SEs actually use only limited marketing knowledge and approaches to try to ensure their sustainability in a competitive marketing place – and that this has changed little over the past decade. This study has found little true engagement by SEs either with marketing in general or with services and relationship marketing in particular. They possess no understanding as to how this can help ensure their sustainability as social businesses. A significant worry here is that if SEs are unwilling to engage with marketing as a managerial discipline, because of their confusion of it as a discipline with the “commercialisation” of social care (which they see as undermining their social values), then this may well undermine their ability to become sustainable providers of public services, as defined earlier. A fundamental issue is the enduring hostility to “marketing” through its association and confusion with the “marketisation” agenda that was at the heart of the adoption of the New Public Management in England from the 1990s onwards (McLaughlin et al., 2009). Until this confusion has been resolved, it will continue to obscure the distinctive potential contribution both of marketing in general to the sustainability of SEs and of relationship marketing and the understanding of marketing within service businesses, in particular. Conscious and unconscious marketing A key theme that has pervaded this paper has been that of the “unconscious” or intuitive use of relationship marketing approaches by managers within SEs, although without any explicit professional marketing framework with which to make sense of these. Indeed, the relationship between conscious and unconscious cognition and action is an issue that has preoccupied the social sciences for decades (Loftus and Klinger, 1992). Within the marketing literature, there is a tradition of research and theory around unconscious or sublimal marketing in “business-to-customer” relationships (Martin and Morich, 2011), yet there is little that explores the unconscious application of marketing by service managers, especially in the context of “business-to-business” relationships. Indeed, Eiriz and Wilson (2006, p. 276) have noted that:


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[…] the development and evolution of passive and unconscious marketing relationships are not at the forefront of the [literature] and would benefit from more exclusive attention than can be offered here.

This paper offers an exploratory contribution to this theme in the marketing literature, by suggesting that both cognate service managers can apply marketing approaches unconsciously and in ignorance of the marketing body of knowledge, and that this application would be enhanced by an explicit orientation towards this body of knowledge, particularly in relation to relationship marketing. This is an important direction for future research. Conclusions This study has explored the utilisation of marketing concepts and techniques by SEs and their contribution to the sustainability of these organisations. It has been based upon exploratory research into four SEs working in the north-east of England. As such, its results have to be treated with caution and as indicative, rather than definitive. However, its findings are significant and require further research to validate them, as their implications are considerable. Four conclusions are important. First, it has found a surprising lack of engagement with genuine marketing theory and practice by these bodies, with evidence suggestive that this comes, in part, from a value-based suspicion of such business-like approaches and confusion between the use of marketing by SEs and the marketisation of social care services. This suspicion of “business practice” is remarkable in a group of organisations that explicitly espouse a social business orientation, although it does replicate findings from a series of other studies carried out over the past decade, as discussed above. It suggests that this lack of engagement with marketing is endemic and threatens the long-term sustainability of SEs as providers of public services. It is also suggestive that the adoption of the “social enterprise” label is as much concerned with the positioning of these bodies against their competitors in relation to government contracts as it is to a commitment to a genuine enterprising or business-orientation – and this tension severely compromises their long-term sustainability. Second, there is a lasting misapprehension of the actual nature of marketing for services, including public services. As suggested by the broader non-profit marketing literature, marketing continued to be associated by these SEs with the selling or promotion of products, despite the existence of a substantial body of research and practice within the services field concerned with relationship marketing, as discussed above, and which has been increasingly argued as central to the provision of public services (McLaughlin et al., 2009; McGuire, 2012; Osborne et al., 2014). This latter approach to marketing is highly relevant to SEs. If the findings of this exploratory study are generalisable across the SE sector as a whole, however, it is notable for its almost total absence within SEs. Osborne et al. (2013) have argued for a public service-dominant approach to public services delivery that embeds managerial practice in delivering public services within a service rather than product dominant context. This study would tend to support the relevance and import of their approach for SEs. If marketing was thus understood and enacted within SEs, then it would have the potential to make a significant contribution to their sustainability. It would build upon the “unconscious marketing” identified in this paper and discussed further below, as being carried out by service managers to amplify its contribution to organisational performance. At present,


though, it is neither understood nor applied, and this is undermining the sustainability of SEs providing public services in England – to the detriment both of these organisations and of the public services themselves. Third, this study did uncover an element of unconscious marketing being carried out by SEs, but not informed by the wealth of service-business practice in marketing that could have improved both its application and effectiveness. The lack of effective and explicit services marketing skills in SEs working in competitive markets for public services such as the social care is undermining their sustainability both as organisations in their own right and as the providers of essential public services. It would seem to be essential for managers in SEs either to possess such services managerial or business experience or to have access to training that addresses this gap. This would both provide the core marketing skills required and confront the expressed value clash felt by managers within SEs (Dixon and Kouzmin, 1994). This finding also emphasises the need for this phenomenon to be subject to further more rigorous research and theorisation in the broader marketing literature, as argued above. Finally, a systematic approach to relationship by SEs, rooted in a public service-dominant business logic has the potential to provide a genuine basis for sustainability for SEs and which is currently lacking – and which the research suggests has endured over the past decade, and more. This is not about a crass adoption of marketing directly from a commercial to a public service context but rather its sympathetic adaptation to address the needs of public services and of SEs alike. This will be facilitated by utilising the services management discipline, based upon the centrality of relationship marketing and management rather than the inherently transactional marketing practice from manufacturing and product experience. Such an approach would assist in the identification of the key stakeholders germane to the sustainability of SEs and offer a coherent set of strategies for their engagement in enduring productive relationships (and also when and how to terminate them, of course!). A possible model to integrate such a relationship marketing approach into managerial practice by SEs is suggested in (Figure 1), on the basis of this study. This has


Figure 1. A suggested Relationship Marketing Approach for SE


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been developed from the integration of the existing relationship marketing literature with the findings of this study. It now requires further testing and validation as a framework to support the contribution of marketing to the sustainability of SEs in providing public service.

40

Summary: contribution to theory and practice This paper has explored the nature of marketing activity by SEs. In theoretical terms, it has confirmed the applicability of the findings of the broader non-profit and public service marketing literature to these organisations. Marketing continues to be misunderstood by SEs as a transactional process of promotion or selling, rather than one of building longer-term business-to-business and business-to-customer relationships that would contribute to their long-term sustainability. As Teasdale (2010) has suggested the social business discourse of many SEs may be as much a response to the current public policy trajectory, discussed above, that privileges the concept of social enterprise above that of third-sector organisation as a provider of public services, rather than a commitment to an extant model of social business. If this is true then it is primarily an example of coercive isomorphism, as identified by DiMaggio and Powell (1991) rather than of sustainable business practice. Consequently, and in practice terms, this paper has identified the need for SE managers to be encouraged to engage with the relevant body of services marketing practice to build on their unconscious understanding of the need to build and maintain relationships as the essential route to sustainability for SEs. At the core of this is the adoption of a public service-dominant business logic for SEs. Notes 1. This issue of unconscious marketing is important and one that is returned to in the conclusions of this paper. 2. This important distinction is explored further below in the discussion of the important recent work by Teasdale (2010). 3. Public Services Organizations are any organisations from across the governmental, third and business sectors that are involved in the provision of public services. 4. This reform agenda is often referred to by the shorthand term of the “New Public Management” or NPM (McLaughlin et al, 2002). References Akchin, D. (2001), “Non-profit marketing: just how far has it come?”, Non-profit World, Jan/Feb, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 33-35. Anheier, H.K. (2000), Managing Non-profit Organisations: Towards a New Approach, Civil Society: Working Paper 1, Centre for Civil Society, London School of Economics and Political Science, London. Bansal, P. and Corley, K. (2012) “Publishing in AMJ – Part 7: what’s different about qualitative research?”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 55 No. 3, pp. 509-513. Benson, J. (1975), “The interorganizational network as a Political economy”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 229-249. Best, M. (1993), The New Competition, Wiley, New York, NY.


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Morgan, R. and Hunt, S. (1994), “The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 58 No. 3, pp. 20-38. Nyssens, M. (Ed.) (2006), Social Enterprise. At the Crossroads of Market, Public policies and Civil Society, Routledge, New York, NY. Osborne, S. (2010), The New Public Governance? Routledge, London. Osborne, S., Radnor, Z., Kinder, T. and Vidal, I. (2014), “A sustainable business model for public service organisations?”, Public Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 4. Osborne, S., Radnor, Z. and Nasi, G. (2013), “A new theory for public service management? Toward a (Public) service-dominant approach”, American Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 43 No. 2, pp. 135-158. Palmer, A. (2001), “Co-operation and collusion: making the distinction in marketing relationships”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 17 Nos 7/8, pp. 761-784. Patton, M. (2009), Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods, Sage, London. Peattie, K. and Morley, A. (2008), “Eight paradoxes of the social enterprise research agenda”, Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 91-107. Pharoah, C. (2003), “Are there strings attached to governments shillings?”, Third Sector, Vol. 2 No. 12. Pharoah, C., Scott, D. and Fisher, A. (2004), Social Enterprise in the Balance: Challenges in the Voluntary Sector, Charities Aid Foundation, Kent. Piercy, N. and Cravens, D. (1995), “The network paradigm and the marketing organization: developing a new management agenda”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 7-34. Powell, W. and DiMaggio, P. (1991), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Russell, L. and Scott, D. (2007), Social Enterprise in Practice, Charities Aid Foundation, West Malling. Schwartz, R. (2005), “The contracting quandary: managing local authority – VNPO relations”, Local Government Studies, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 69-83. Scrivens, E. (1991), “Is there a role for marketing in the public sector?”, Public Money and Management, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 17-23. Shaw, E. (2004), “Marketing in social enterprise context: is it entrepreneurial?”, Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 194-205. Sheaff, R. (1991), Marketing for Health Services: A Framework for Communications, Evaluation and Total Quality Management, PsychoBabel, Oxford. Silverman, D. (2010), Doing Qualitative Research, Sage, London. Simmons, R. (2008), “Harnessing social enterprise for local public services the case of new leisure trusts in the UK”, Public Policy & Administration, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 278-301. Small Business Survey (2010), available at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/32228/11-p74-bis-small-business-survey-2010.pdf (accessed 9 March 2013). Stride, H. and Lee, S. (2007), “No Logo? No way: branding in the non-profit sector”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 23 Nos 1/2, pp. 107-122. Teasdale, S. (2010), “What’s in a Name? The Construction of Social Enterprise”, Paper to the Public Administration Committee Conference, Nottingham.


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Teasdale, S., Lyon, F. and Baldock, R. (2013), “Playing with numbers: a methodological critique of the social enterprise growth myth”, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 113-131. Thompson, J. and Doherty, B. (2006), “The diverse world of social enterprise: a collection of social enterprise stories”, International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 33 Nos 5/6, pp. 361-375. Vazquez, R., Alvarez, L. and Santos, M. (2002), “Market orientation and social services in private non-profit organizations”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36 Nos 9/10, pp. 1022-1046. Walsh, K. (1991), “Citizens and consumers: marketing and public sector management”, Public Money & Management, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 9-16. Walsh, K. (1994), “Marketing and public sector management”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 63-71. Williamson, O. (1985), The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting, Free Press, New York, NY. Wright, G., Chew, C. and Hines, A. (2012), “The relevance and efficacy of marketing in public and non-profit service management”, Public Management Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 433-450. Yin, R.K. (2009), Case Study Research Design and Methods, Sage, Los Angeles. Further reading Butler, P. and Collins, N. (1995), “Marketing public sector services: concepts and characteristics”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 11 Nos 1/3, pp. 83-96. DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1983), “The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 147-160. Gilmore, A., Carson, D. and Grant, K. (2001), “SME marketing in practice”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 6-11. Keh, H.T., Nguyen, T.T.M. and Ng, H.P. (2007), “The effects of entrepreneurial orientation and marketing information on the performance of SMEs”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 592-611. About the authors Madeline Powell is currently undertaking doctoral research on sustainable social enterprise at the University of York Management School. Madeline Powell is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] Stephen P. Osborne is a Professor of International Public Management at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Interviewee Interviewee A is the chief executive of “Change”, being one of four founding member. Before opening “Change”, Interviewee A had undertaken an Open University degree which included management modules and marketing strategies. Interviewee A has worked both within the private sector in a major retail clothing store and in the charity sector working for a large charity who works with people with learning difficulties

Interviewee B is the innovation’s hub director. Prior experience includes working in the private sector in the motor trade business and also working in the social care sector in charities. Interviewee B manages all three SEs the charity has set up (which includes the “Vintage” tea room)

Characteristics

“Change” was founded in 2008 and is dedicated to changing the social and health care market place particularly in the provision of services and what is accessible to people in main stream services. “Change” is a small SE with seven people being directly employed and fifteen associates being employed on an ad hoc basis. Income is generated through running events for providers of services, and charging them for attending the event. Income is also generated through commissioned work from Local Authorities and a book that they wrote outlining their first 18 months in business

“Vintage” was founded in 2008 and is dedicated to helping disadvantaged people get into work. It is part of a bigger charity (which has been open since 1993) but acts as an independent SE. It operates as a “Vintage” tea room making money also by selling vintage clothes, jewellery and crockery. It is small, employing six people with learning and physical difficulties

Marketing techniques used by “Change” include press releases, direct marketing flyers and contacting their target market through an email mailing list. “Change” have also developed their own logo as part of their brand, it has tried to incorporate both a business element and a social element. Their logo visualised this by being soft yet business like. The logo had “Change” in dark grey writing meaning to visualise the business-like part of the logo and in the middle of the logo was a path leading to a person which symbolises that the company is on a path. On the direct marketing flyers that are used there is an image of an old lady which is meant to represent that “Change” may have been developed out of supporting people with learning difficulties but it is a service for anybody needing it. “Change” has adopted a focus positioning strategy by being the only SE that focussed upon the social and health-care market place Marketing activities include using social networking sites (such as Facebook, Twitter and Flicker) and direct marketing such as handing flyers out in the streets. Local press coverage has also been a major form of marketing and they have hired an ex-journalist who is well connected within the city. To create awareness, “Vintage” goes to vintage fashion fairs creating awareness for the brand and promotes them both as a SE but as a business as well. “Vintage” have developed their own logo as part of their brand which is separate but has distinct similarities to the brand of the charity to make the association clear. The logo has tried to incorporate the “Vintage” part of the SE but also shown that it is a business by including black lettering around the name. A differentiation positioning strategy was adopted by being unlike any tea room within the city and unlike any vintage shop within the city (continued)

Marketing activities


Appendix


Table AI. Appendix

Interviewee Interviewee C is the chief executive of the main charity an cooking school. Before working in the charity and SE sector, Interviewee C was a lecturer in English then moved onto private sector training and education. Since then, Interviewee C has ran conferences in an event management company which eventually drew him into the third sector

Interviewee D is a trained social worker. Before working at “Helping families”, he worked in a similar company to “Helping families” but decided to leave due to sustainability issues and lack of funding. “Helping Families” was then set up to take Interviewee D’s ideas forward and develop a more sustainable organisation which offered more services

“Learn to Cook” is a mainstream cookery school set up in 2009 as a community interest company by a larger charity. “Learn to Cook” employs a number of chefs and teachers employed on an ad hoc basis who are seen to be experts in their field. It earns income through public access courses, workshops on nutrition advice, weekend cooking clubs, offering parties such as hen nights and team building events. Its aim is to use the money gained from these different activities to offer courses to disadvantaged groups such as young carers

“Helping families” specialises in working with families who are undergoing a separation or divorce and where there is major conflict. It was set up in 2004 and employs under ten people on a full time and part time basis. It makes income by providing a safe and supervised contact for children and their families. Other income streams include training social workers to provide extra support for parents and children

Table AI.

Characteristics

46 Their marketing activities include having a website, doing direct marketing by sending out brochures, going on the radio and building sponsorships up with corporate private businesses to provide marketing and awareness for both organisations. Learn to Cook’s have adopted a differentiation strategic position by being the only mainstream cookery school which provides community classes for disadvantaged groups. Learn to Cook undertake very low key relationship marketing using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to keep in contact with the customers. Currently they are not using relationship marketing with the corporation team building side to the business however they are planning within the future. This will be done by offering an incentive the corporations, for example, one place on the training course will be given free if they purchase a certain amount of places Marketing for “Helping families” is very limited and low key due to the nature of the service. Their marketing strategy is mainly through direct marketing such as flyers and press coverage such as going on the local radio. Interviewee D had already made good connections through the last business so its greatest market strategy was the personal networks and contacts he had already been made. Upon opening the new business (to show that it was completely separate from the old business), they did a launch in which all of the main contacts were invited. This allowed them to identify how it was a better service and what they could offer. “Families forward” have adopted a cost leadership strategy, charging a lower price to other supervise centres in the area. Relationship marketing is very limited, however, they do provide added benefits to the courts (who they get their customers from) the service of doing the referrals for them (free of charge) which the courts would usually have to do themselves

Marketing activities


SEJ 11,1