Governance through regulation: Assessing the contribution of a regulatory framework towards the quality of social enterprise governance

Abstract

The governance of social enterprises through a specific regulatory framework is one of the modes of social enterprise governance. This research paper seeks to investigate the regulatory framework for social enterprises in Thailand, answering to what extent does the existing regulatory framework contribute to the quality of social enterprise governance in the country? Through the adoption of the qualitative approach, promotion of social enterprises and mitigation of mission drift are determined as the core themes of the findings whereas the institionalisation of the social enterprise ecosystem, access to funding, the certification of social enterprises, the distribution of net profit, and social impact measurement are the relevant sub-themes. Based on the findings, it is argued that the existing regulatory framework for social enterprises contributes towards the quality of Thailand’s social enterprise governance to a limited extent due to regulatory failure. Regulatory reforms of the existing framework are therefore recommended with an emphasis on a lessening of the intensity of regulation on entry, modifications of a distributable profit cap and strengthening regulatory capacity of the regulatory bodies.