Social enterprises, marketing, and sustainable public service provision
研究英国东北部提供成人社会照料服务的社会企业，发现其采用产品主导而非服务导向的营销方式，削弱了与利益相关者的长期关系，进而影响可持续性；并基于服务理论提出替代模型。
This article explores whether social enterprises are capable of fulfilling the public policy rhetoric surrounding them, to become sustainable providers of public services. It does this by examining their marketing activity within North-East England and focuses on social enterprises delivering adult social care public services. It finds that social enterprises are employing a product-dominant approach to marketing rather than a service-oriented, relationship marketing, approach. This undermines their ability to build the enduring relationships with all their key stakeholders that are the key to effective service management and fatally weakens their potential as sustainable public service providers. The article subsequently uses service theory to build an alternative model of marketing and business practice predicated precisely upon the need to build such relationships. Points for practitioners This article points to the need for public service practitioners to embrace a service orientation to the management of public services, rather than a product-dominant one derived from manufacturing. It outlines the key elements of relationship marketing in particular and highlights how this approach can contribute substantially to sustainable public service provision.