View article

In 2005, the British parliament passed legislation to make available the first new legal form of incorporation in over a century: the Community Interest Company (CIC). This initiative represented an important element within a larger set of public policy measures that aimed to create a more enabling environment for the accelerated growth of social entrepreneurship and, specifically, social enterprises. In an exploratory study, this paper presents an analysis of the regulatory space within which the reporting and disclosure practices for CICs were negotiated. Three elements within the regulatory space are identified as having explanatory value: regulatory boundaries that set and limit the terms of negotiation around regulatory practice; the key actors that engage in a process of negotiation around the establishment of actual practice; the range of debate and conflicting ideas that inform regulatory negotiation and legitimating …