ISSN: 2642-6250
Authors: Meads G* and Lees AL
The context of escalating need for government funded health care services encourages policymakers to develop new enterprises which can relieve demand for statutory services. This concept based article reports a scoping review designed to identify priorities for a research agenda of organisational studies which can examine these enterprises, and their emerging relational networks, within an expanding health and wellbeing sector. The review includes a thematic analysis in which transferable learning from recent ethnographic studies in Australia and the United Kingdom is presented. This is supported by lessons drawn from expert subject advice in follow up research projects and applications. The two countries were originally selected because of their rapid new development of wellbeing services. Overall findings point to distinct types of relational network, and informal leaderships emerging to facilitate wider access to social enterprises and informal health and wellbeing services. As ‘actor networks’ these are classified by their material features. Spiritual leaders and resources are shown to contribute significantly to these networks, which also incorporate sports, arts and therapeutic practices. With public health and social care strategically aligned in many market based systems globally, the review concludes that research on alternative network development processes is required for local authorities with community development responsibilities. Overlapping relationships between alternative networks may offer the prospect of more holistic approaches to public health and health care quality that reduce pressures on government funded interventions.
Keywords: Wellbeing; Network; Relational; Spiritual; Social Enterprise; Scoping Review
