A combination of survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews will be used to gather quantitative and qualitative evidence to answer the questions identified for this study. The unit of analysis is the charitable organization. The sampling frame will be the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) database of registered UK charities in Wales and Welsh national charities. The survey will be aimed at 650 charities operating in Wales and aims to provide an initial broad understanding of the extent of formalized social enterprise activities in them, the organizational structures and governance mechanisms adopted for their social enterprise activities, the benefits experienced and tensions/challenges faced by them during the process of social entrepreneurialization.
Data from the questionnaires will be analyzed using SPSS. Emerging themes from the survey stage will be investigated in greater depth using semi-structured interviews with a sub-sample of survey respondents. Thematic analysis of data from each interview and analytic comparison of data across interviews will be conducted to unveil similarities and differences in the evidence along key themes.
The time period for this study is from January to October 2009.
Stage I commences in January 2009 and will include a literature review, survey questionnaire design and exploratory discussions with a small advisory panel comprising of experts who are knowledgeable on VCOs and CICs in Wales. The advisory panel is voluntary and might comprise among others the senior research officer of WCVA, the CIC regulator in Wales, a key decision-maker of a charity that has set up a CIC, and a key decision-maker of a social enterprise that is not a CIC.
Stage II will be the first leg of the data collection and is scheduled to be between mid-February and end April (2.5 months). It will involve a postal survey questionnaire distributed to a random sample of about 550 UK charities in Wales and Welsh national charities using the WCVA database of registered charities.
This stage will include a pre-test and launch of the survey questionnaire, and initial analysis of the survey data collected. A target response rate of 40% is set based on the response rates achieved in previous postal surveys using this sampling frame.
Stage III will be the second leg of the data collection and is scheduled to be between May and July 2009 (3 months). It will involve in-depth semi-structured interviews with a sub-sample of 15-20 respondents from the survey stage in order to investigate emerging themes from the survey stage in more detail. The respondents will be a mix of charities (those that have not set up CICs but intend to do so, those that do not plan to set up CICs and those that have set up CICs). The interviews will be conducted with a key decision maker in the organization (trustees, directors, chief executives or senior managers) in order to uncover patterns of differing or similar perspectives.
Stage IV will involve detailed analysis of evidence gathered from the survey questionnaire and the in-depth interviews, writing up of the findings and the final research report. This is scheduled to be between August and October 2009 (3 months).
