Prosocial crowdfunding platforms are venues for individual lenders to allocate resources to ventures that specifically pursue economic and social value. In a setting where hybridity is expected, do ...crowdfunders respond positively to category-spanning ventures, or do they prefer to fund ventures that are more clearly situated within a single category? Drawing on theory rooted in category membership and spanning, our hypotheses test whether prosocial crowdfunding lenders will more quickly allocate resources to hybrid microenterprises that communicate their hybridity, or to those that communicate a single one of their dual aims. Our study demonstrates that even in such a setting, crowdfunders lend more quickly to microenterprises that position themselves within a single linguistic category in which the social is emphasized over the economic. This suggests that how hybrid organizations position themselves in their linguistic narratives has a significant impact on resource allocation by external prosocial audiences.
•Words matter above and beyond actions.•How ventures position themselves linguistically within a category influences resource allocation by external audiences.•Audiences prefer singular messaging of either social or economic benefit to a balance of both, even when both are expected.•Audiences increasingly shift resource allocation over time toward ventures with prosocial descriptions of their actions.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by the United Nations are a call to action for policy-makers around the globe to tackle grand societal challenges. Sustainability start-ups can help ...meet some of the most pressing challenges. Regions of start-up activity are commonly referred to as entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), although the share of sustainability start-ups varies markedly from one EE to another. While literature on EEs is abundant, scholarly work on sustainability-oriented EEs, i.e. those with a high share of sustainability start-ups, is still relatively scarce. In particular, there is limited understanding of the reasons why some EEs have a higher share of sustainability start-ups than others. The present paper considers this gap in the literature by contrasting the EEs of Berlin and Lagos, which have very different shares of sustainability start-ups. Forty interviews conducted with founders, investors, hubs and government representatives in both EEs showed that particularly successful start-ups in an EE, so-called lighthouses, play an important role in shaping the cultural, social and material attributes of an EE. This means that the sustainability orientation of these lighthouses is instrumental in creating environments in which sustainability start-ups can flourish. Moreover, lighthouses can attract new talent and resources to a region, which further underlines their role as accelerators of an EE towards sustainability. Overall, the lighthouses are a critical factor in explaining the share of sustainability start-ups. Policy-makers can strengthen this effect by giving access to extra resources and opportunities to promising start-ups and by showcasing their success.
•Conditions in an entrepreneurial ecosystem can help sustainability start-ups.•Conditions for sustainability start-ups in Lagos and Berlin are compared.•Lagos is more sustainability-oriented than Berlin, but similar drivers exist.•In particular, successful entrepreneurs become leaders (lighthouses) in an ecosystem.•Lighthouses help shape the cultural, social and material conditions in an ecosystem.
•Cultural Values affect Social Entrepreneurship (SE) in different countries.•Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) negatively relates to SE.•In-group Collectivism (GCOLL) positively relates to SE.•Gender ...Egalitarianism (GE) positively relates to SE.•Future Orientation positively related to SE.
This study investigates the cultural drivers of social entrepreneurship (SE), focusing on the way in which Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) affects social entrepreneurial activity (SEA) in different countries. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and GLOBE project were used as data sources. Cultural values, regional affiliation, and economic development levels were used to cluster the selected countries. Correlations between values and operating SEA were checked for the entire sample, as well as for each of the three clusters. A positive correlation between ‘Gender Egalitarianism’ and narrowly defined operating SEA and negative correlation between ‘Uncertainty Avoidance’ and the aforementioned SEA was confirmed for all the countries, while the linkage between ‘Future Orientation’, ‘In-group Collectivism’, and operating SEA was partially verified. Research results suggest that culture is not sufficient to justify national differences in SE rates.
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) contribute to society through their social value creation. They operate in an increasingly turbulent context where building sustainable organizations has emerged as a ...critical need. Past authors have discussed this important issue in a fragmented manner. Using multiple case studies of socially entrepreneurial NPOs, this paper examines how the need for building a sustainable organization has impacted on the strategy focus of the nonprofit organization. The findings suggest that in response to an increased competitive environment, NPOs have been forced to adopt an organizational sustainability focus in both strategic and operational levels of management. The study makes a strong contribution to current debate in social entrepreneurship and to a broader agenda concerned with developing sustainable organizations. Whilst the findings have important implications for theory and current practice, the paper concludes with suggestions for future research at the interstices of these areas.
This case outlines the journey of this new-age young social entrepreneur, Akhilesh Taparia, whose mantra has been social welfare coupled with organisational success. The case traces how he fought ...against all odds to take his enterprise to greater heights and deliberates around these questions: What did he do to achieve success in such a short period of time? What was his thought process? How did he grow? What were the main elements of his strategy to have a sustainable enterprise? What were his main hurdles? The case attempts to identify the challenges of social entrepreneurs in emerging economies like India, especially when the required resources are not easily available. Being an entrepreneur and resolving problems can be tough but being in the social space can be even more hard. Nonetheless at a time when the textile industry was caught amongst stiff competition, Go Green created a niche for itself as a textile supplier of organic fabrics. A personal interview of Akhilesh Taparia and a personal visit to his factory gave the authors a complete understanding of the manufacturing and packing process. The primary objective of this case is to understand concepts related to social entrepreneurship and deliberate upon Taparia’s entrepreneurial characteristics, motivations, expertise and effectiveness, and how these supported his company’s growth.
As social problems become more extensive and diverse, one of the most critical capabilities of social entrepreneurs is connecting and aligning various stakeholders. Social entrepreneurs can solve ...problems better through collaboration with stakeholders, and this leads to sustainable innovation of society. Accordingly, social entrepreneurship education (SEE) programs should be designed and operated to cultivate social entrepreneurs’ abilities to enhance connectivity with all relevant entities of the social enterprise ecosystem. Consequently, SEE can form ever-growing communities of social entrepreneurs while functioning as innovation hubs for entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) evolving on their own. To this end, this study proposes a design and assessment framework for SEE. The framework emphasizes strengthening internal connectivity among SEE program members and external connectivity with outside entities, including universities, firms, government agencies, civil societies, and natural environments. This framework clarifies how and to whom social entrepreneurs should connect throughout the SEE process. This paper analyzes the case of an MBA degree SEE program in Korea using this framework and identifies directions for further improvement of SEE, contributing to the social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education literatures by integrating SEE’s key features with social theories of learning and the quintuple helix model for sustainable innovation ecosystems. Practically, our findings provide a useful benchmark to find isolated internal and external entities that need more active interactions to achieve SEE’s purposes.
The contested concept of social entrepreneurship has gained particular prominence in academic literature over the last few decades. To explore how patterns of understandings relating to social ...entrepreneurship have emerged and shifted over time, we undertook a critical historical review focusing on the most highly cited social entrepreneurship articles in each of five time periods over the last 30 years. We identify four thematic areas—conceptualization, theoretical approaches, the search for data, and social change outcomes—characteristic of each period, allowing us to plot the terrain of social entrepreneurship scholarship over time. We show how patterns emerge across these themes over time and relate our analysis to wider developments in the field. In concluding, we discuss how the concept has been theoretically and conceptually enriched by an ability to accommodate critique.
This study investigates how gender and sustainability orientation shape the effects of perceived desirability and feasibility on social entrepreneurial intentions. It provides indication that the ...effects differ in comparison to general entrepreneurial intentions. Data from 601 students indicates that women are more likely to translate positive desirability into social entrepreneurial intentions. We further show that a high level of sustainability orientation enhances the effect of perceived desirability and perceived feasibility on the intent to become a social entrepreneur, but is hardly associated with general entrepreneurial intentions. The findings provide insights for better targeting and supporting future social entrepreneurs.
We examine the factors that influence the social performance of hybrid organizations that pursue a social mission and sustain their operations through commercial activities by studying work ...integration social enterprises (WISEs). We argue that both social imprinting, defined as a founding team's early emphasis on accomplishing the organization's social mission, and economic productivity are important drivers of a WISE's social performance. However, there is a paradox inherent in the social imprinting of WISEs: Although social imprinting directly enhances a WISE's social performance, social imprinting also indirectly weakens social performance by negatively affecting economic productivity. Results based on panel data of French WISEs gathered between 2003 and 2007 are congruent with our predictions. To understand how socially imprinted WISEs may mitigate this negative relationship between social imprinting and economic productivity, we also conduct a comparative analysis of case studies. We find that one effective approach is to assign responsibility for social and economic activities to distinct groups while creating "spaces of negotiation"—arenas of interaction that allow members of each group to discuss the trade-offs that they face. We conclude by highlighting the conditions under which spaces of negotiation can effectively be used to maintain a productive tension in hybrid organizations.
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