Redesigning Meso-Institutions in the Social Economy to Deal with Uncertainty: The Case of CGM Network

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 Redesigning meso-institutions in the social economy to deal 2 with uncertainty. The case of CGM network

Manuscript ID sustainability-2802098

 

Dear authors, thank you to give me the opportunity to read your manuscript entitled “Redesigning meso-institutions in the social economy to deal 2 with uncertainty. The case of CGM network”

The paper is an exploration of how institutions in the social economy can adapt to become more effective amidst the uncertainties of system transformation. It particularly examines "meso-institutions," defined as those not emerging from either a grassroots or top-down bureaucratic approach. The study centers on CGM, a network of 600 social enterprises in Italy, analyzing its efforts to renew its institutional configuration and mandate in response to both external and internal changes. CGM aspires to be a "reconfigurator" of multi-local systems, establishing new societal rules. The article delves into the tensions and opportunities arising from this process, offering insights into broader implications for institutional innovation.

I find the positioning of your paper quite intriguing and appreciate its focus. Concerning the definition of meso-institutions, I am keen to gain a clearer understanding of their theoretical positioning in terms of levels of analysis. My current understanding is that they act as intermediaries between individual organizations and institutional actors, both public and private. From this perspective, there seem to be similarities with the concepts of closed or open intermediaries discussed by Nambisan and Shawney in 2011 and Giudici et al., 2018. To enhance the clarity and comprehensiveness of your paper, I suggest providing a more detailed and thorough definition of meso-institutions (a dedicated paragraph can help).

In addressing a second aspect of your paper, I'd like to delve deeper into how you conceptualize the social economy within your study. When introducing this concept, it's not immediately clear whether the social economy is the driving force behind the change and evolving role of meso-organizations, or if it simply serves as the backdrop for your theoretical discussion. The title of your paragraph, "Social Economy: An Observatory for the Changing Role of Meso-Institution," suggests that the social economy is indeed the contextual framework for your analysis. However, the connection between the social economy and your study could be more explicitly defined. Understanding the role of the social economy in your research is crucial; does it influence the dynamics of meso-institutions, or does it provide a specific setting in which these institutions operate and evolve?

Clarifying this link will not only enhance the reader's comprehension of the theoretical underpinnings of your work but also solidify the relevance of your study within the broader discourse on social economy and institutional change.

Finally, regarding your introduction of the CGM case, while it's apparent that you possess a deep familiarity with it, there is a lack of clarity on whether it is employed as a single case study or as an illustrative example to support your theoretical speculations. To resolve this ambiguity, I suggest adding a section dedicated to detailing your data collection methods, the type of data gathered, and the overall conduct of the research.

If your approach primarily involves archival data, it would be beneficial to reference specific books and papers provided directly by the CGM consortium, along with acknowledging the contributions of their research team. This would not only lend credibility to your research by highlighting the sources of your data but also help in establishing the methodological rigor of your study.

Providing this information will enable readers to better understand the foundation of your research, appreciate the depth of your case study, and see how it ties into the broader theoretical framework you are exploring.

In conclusion, it was a pleasure to read your manuscript. This area has a lot to appreciate. Nevertheless, further work would be required to improve this. I hope my suggestions prove to be useful. I wish you luck and am excited to see this published in the future.

Cited Papers

Giudici, A., Reinmoeller, P., & Ravasi, D. (2018). Open-system orchestration as a relational source of sensing capabilities: Evidence from a venture association. Academy of Management Journal, 61(4), 1369-1402.

Nambisan, S., & Sawhney, M. (2011). Orchestration processes in network-centric innovation: Evidence from the field. Academy of management perspectives, 25(3), 40-57

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions which were very helpful. Following your indications, we have added a paragraph (2.1) where we have tried to better describe the contribution of the literature on meso institutions for the definition of a broader theory on social intermediation, also consulting the bibliography that you have pointed out.

We then clarified the role of the social economy by emphasizing its possible contribution to the evolution of meso institutions and not only as one of the different "fields" in which meso institutions can be born. In this sense, we have clarified the research demand that is the basis of the contribution.

Finally, we have added a methodological paragraph (4) with respect to the choice of the CGM case study and the modalities of its implementation.

Best regards and thank you again for your suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper addresses a potentially interesting issue as it tries to discuss how meso-institutions can change in the contemporary context. It offers some interesting insights, especially referring to the Italian contexts of social enterprises.

If the premises are good, I found your paper difficult to evaluate. Indeed, this paper has an approach that it is different from the academic standards that I am used to. This does not imply that the paper is not interesting per se, but that it does not follow the typical academic approach consisting of a theoretical literature review (which is the theoretical problem that is not considered or is over-looked by extant literature and why is it interesting?), a theoretical gap that you aim to fill (which is the research question of your paper? what is its contribution to extant literature?), and an empirical analysis that goes beyond the description of the investigated phenomenon. Your paper does not present such elements and thus I am experiencing some troubles in providing you some useful comments. Indeed, I usually would recommend to completely re-write the paper highlighting the theoretical gap that you want to address and spelling out your theoretical contribution. In so doing, you should follow a fil rouge that could help the reader to get in an easier way to the theoretical gap and the related paper’s intended contribution.

However, as I said before, your paper offers some interesting insights on a phenomenon that you observed. Reading the paper, I had the feeling that you want to advance an (interesting) idea that you had already in mind at the beginning of the paper and that you want to corroborate by presenting a case that it is basically a sort of confirmation of what you say in the introduction. Now, if I understood correctly, you are sending the paper to a special issue and, thus, I think that it is up to editors decide whether your paper meets their expectations and academic standards required to appear on their special issue. If this will be the case and you do not have to re-write the paper, I would recommend to make two important amendments:

1)     you have to better explain the rationale for the selection of your case. The fact that maybe you had easy access to the research setting or that it has not been studied by previous studies are not a sufficient reason to justify your study. To achieve this goal, it would be helpful to keep in mind the following question: why is it interesting? Looking back the classic criteria for the selection of single case study suggested by Eisenhardt (1989) or Yin (2014) may provide help here.

2)     you need to improve your conclusions as at the present they are more a sort of (bullet-point) summary of your article. In doing so, I would suggest flashing out why and how your results are potentially interesting for an international audience and how they resonate with your theoretical background.

I hope my comments and suggestions could be beneficial to your work. Best of luck.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

To my competencens, the quality of English Language is good.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your suggestions, in particular with regard to the need for an overall rewrite of the contribution that has greatly requested us as authors. We have decided not to proceed in this direction both because we admit that we do not have the necessary knowledge and technical skills (even at the level of scientific language), and because it seemed right not to hide our profile as practitioners and not as academic researchers.

We then tried to make the incremental changes you suggested. In particular, a new methodological paragraph (4) that introduces the case study. We have also enriched the conclusions, although we have maintained a summary structure as it seems to us that the contribution contains in the previous parts a multiplicity of analytical and interpretative elements that deserved above all to be summarized.

Best regards and thank you again for your criticisms and suggestions.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Research on social entrepreneurship has been on the rise for almost a decade. Its importance is mainly as a response to the crisis of welfare systems, specifically in the European context, and as a new strategy to combat social and economic exclusion (OECD 2003), and the gradual transformation of welfare states, which represents a shift from traditional institutional and redistributive to work-oriented welfare policies aiming at developing capabilities (G.Fekete et al. 2017) 

The number of social enterprises is only 1% of business enterprises, but the number and importance of social enterprises is increasing due to the retreat of public organisations from welfare services, the interest of organisations in diversifying resources and the growing interest in social innovation. Social entrepreneurship can be approached from a number of angles, such as business models, development areas, resource mobilisation opportunities, areas of activity, social innovation, etc. Engaging with social entrepreneurship is useful and knowledge-enhancing, especially if it is to reduce the uncertainty of the responses to existing social problems.

The study aims to illustrate the process of strategy making and the dynamics of addressing systemic challenges through the example of the Italian CGM meso organisation, which can certainly be considered as a new research result. 

It would also have been good to read about how, compared to other social enterprises in Europe, how much more it delivers in the field of social innovation?

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for highlighting the role of social entrepreneurship as a driver of innovation also in the field of meso-institutions. We have tried to further emphasize this aspect both in the part where we describe the evolution of the social economy, and in the new paragraph (4) where we introduce the case study of CGM. Also in the conclusions we specified that this case study may appear emblematic and transferable at the European level, by virtue of the new action plan on the social economy recently promoted by the European Commission.

Best regards and thanks for your suggestions.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

thanks for the improvement of the paper

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Given the overall goal of the paper, I think it is fine for pubblication on the journal.