Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship as models of sustainability for local NGO’s : learning from Cambodia

This paper has been researched to explore the following question: Can social enterprise (SE) be nurtured in Cambodia as a mechanism for sustainability within the local NGO community without significantly compromising on social objectives? The paper begins with a literature review which discusses the present academic coverage of social enterprise in Cambodia, and theoretical claims about ‘situated practice’ and the way in which social enterprise can be ‘nurtured’ by ‘incubators’; it presents findings from qualitative data gathered from a snowballed sample of semi structured interviews with representatives of expatriate social enterprises, local NGO’s, and seed capital investment funds or foundations which operate in Cambodia. The paper finds that while social enterprise can present local NGO’s with opportunities for revenue streams and new ways to pursue social objectives by integrating them within a business structure: there is not (presently) a great apatite for economic solidarity; the capacities of indigenous NGO’s is weak and their ‘dependency logic’ is hard to change; there is a need for coherent policy initiatives (which at best is a ‘medium term’ aspiration); perhaps controversially, it appears that substantial expatriate leadership is needed in sector for the foreseeable future.