Critical Discourse Analysis

I analyze documents that were produced by diverse institutions and organizations. As I stated earlier, meaning is not an essence that is inherent in a word. Meaning is produced by the relationships between multiple discursive elements, i.e. by discursive formations. In turn, those relationships between discursive elements are shaped by broader non-discursive factors, such as institutions, political, economic, and historical conditions. I use critical discourse analysis as the primary research method for this study (Fairclough 1989; 1992; 1995; 2003). Fairclough

classifies critical discourse analysis into three interrelated analyses: text, discursive practice, and social practice (1992: 73; 1995: 97). The analysis in the dimension of text focuses on identifying linguistic formal features such as vocabulary, grammar, cohesion, and text structure. Those formal features of texts are shaped by discursive practices. Thus, the analysis in the dimension of discursive practice focuses on how discourses or their elements are arranged and combined with each other. Discursive practices are shaped by wider social practices. Thus, the analysis in the dimension of social practice focuses on how the discursive practices are related to non-discursive social practices such as hegemonic power relations. By focusing on the linking role of discursive practices between the dimension of texts and that of social practices, the critical discourse

Specifically, on the basis of Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis model, I designed the research procedures of my study as follows.

2.2.1.1 The Dimension of Text

The purpose of this step is to identify the types of statements that constitute the social

enterprise discourses.17 In this stage, I identify the types of terms that were frequently used in

those data. The purpose of this stage is not to define a meaning of a discourse but to identify what main statements of a discourse constitute the discourse itself. Particular attention is given to the terms in the following categories: public values, commercial business, scientific knowledge (e.g. economics, business management, biology, social capital, public administration, and statistical knowledge), social groups, and social problems, and qualities of social entrepreneurs. In order to identify key terms that constitute the discursive formation of social enterprises, I used the word frequency searching tool of NVivo 10, a qualitative data analysis program. Additionally, I also codified the key terms with NVivo 10, on the basis of the results of the word frequency analysis.

2.2.1.2 The Dimension of Discursive Practice

The purpose of this step is to explore the order of discourse i.e. the main patterns or structures through which the sub-elements of the social enterprise discourse are arranged with each other. Specifically, I focus on the following three core aspects for the analysis. First, I analyze how certain social phenomena are problematized, and how the causes and solutions of

17 _{The term ‘statement (énoncé)’ is atom of a discourse, which constitutes a discourse (Foucault [1969]2002).}

the problematized social phenomena are constructed in the social enterprise discourses. Second, I focus on how diverse types of knowledge are articulated with social enterprise discourses.

Finally, how each political force articulates its discourses with other forces’ discourses in order to secure hegemony is investigated.

In order to explore how the key sub-elements of the social enterprise discourses—the key terms identified through the previous stage of the text analysis—are arranged with each other, I designed the following two procedures. First, I identify the co-appearance frequencies between those key terms in the same texts. Using NVivo 10, I generated the co-appearance frequency matrix, and then, I input this matrix into the NetDraw program of UCINET, a network analysis program, in order to establish a broader picture of the structures of the social enterprise

discourses. This first step provides information about the salient structures of the social enterprise discourses. However, this step of analysis cannot provide the deep and concrete information about the meaning of discursive structures.

Thus, at the second step, I conduct an in-depth analysis of discursive structures based on the results of the co-appearance analysis. I conduct this in-depth discursive analysis on a sub- sample of representative texts that show the salient discursive structure observed at the first step of the analysis. Suppose that the results of the first step of the analysis demonstrate that the social enterprise discourses have two salient discursive structures: one is the structure through which the public value-based terms and the commercial business-based ones are connected to each other in the same texts, and the other is the structure through which only commercial business- based terms constitute the social enterprise discourse without the connection with the public value-based ones. Then, I focus on the analyses of the two groups of the representative texts that

show these two salient discursive structures. In this in-depth discursive analysis stage concrete discursive structures are investigated with a limited number of documents, such as the discursive structure of causality and solution (cause—social problem—solution) about the success and failure in social enterprises’ performance; which statements replace established statements (which statements are said and which statements are repressed or unsaid); how the relationship between social entrepreneurs and the disadvantaged (the target group of social enterprises’ missions) is represented, compared to the typical relationship between revolutionary activists and proletarians; which virtues or abilities are represented as desirable qualities for social

entrepreneurs; how public value-based terms are integrated into market-based terms and

consequently transformed into countable qualities; and how social entrepreneurs, social activists, commercial entrepreneurs are differently represented.

2.2.1.3 The Dimension of Social Practice

The purpose of this third step is to interpret the social enterprise discourses in relations to

non-discursive social practices. Thus, in this stage, I investigate under what non-discursive social conditions—institutions, political, economic, historical conditions and so on—the social

enterprise discourses and their meaning are produced. Specifically, I focus on the following aspects. First, I pay attention to which social forces, apparatuses, and disciplines produce and distribute discourses and knowledge about social enterprises. Second, I investigate how these discourses and knowledge are intertwined with the operations of power operating in social enterprises. Finally, I focus on under which economic, political and social conditions the social enterprise discourses emerged. Figure 3 represents analytical procedures of the study.

Figure 3: Analytical Procedures