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Social entrepreneurs engage in collective action to adapt and solve social problems in complex environments. Through collective action, they mobilise and access resources to create positive social change in local communities. While previous studies explain the role of social identity in promoting cooperation, this paper aims to examine shared meaning as a predictor of collective action in social entrepreneurial ventures (SEVs). This study was conducted among founders of SEVs focusing on their engagement in collective action.

The study adopted a cross-sectional survey to achieve its objectives. The population comprised 558 SEVs registered with the Kampala Capital City Authority in Uganda. A sample size of 226 social ventures was determined using Krecjie and Morgan and participants were selected using the simple random sampling technique. The questionnaires were distributed by two research assistants, and 210 completed questionnaires were returned. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse survey data and test the study hypotheses.

The study findings show that shared meaning in the form of teamwork and group efficacy predict collective action in SEVs.

The results have implications for social entrepreneurship researchers, practitioners and policymakers. Firstly, creating social ties by belonging to different groups in the community creates common understanding among social entrepreneurs and other actors fostering cooperation to solve problems in the local community. Secondly, understanding each other’s perspective well enough facilitates a shared view of social problems for combined action.

SEVs should provide relevant information using the right channels in local communities to promote collaboration. Failure to use the right communication channels may prevent collective action. Managers in social ventures should allow for open information sharing between themselves and the partners that they work with to address social problems. This enables them to share both the good and bad feedback. It also enables the growth of teams and improves how they work. The teams should be developed with specific responsibilities so that everyone is clear on what they should do while addressing social problems.

The researchers argue that shared meaning develops when social entrepreneurs interact with the local community and other stakeholders prompting joint action to address social problems. This study extends knowledge on collective action using the activity domain theory.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both collectively and knowingly. It explores how connections between processes of CI, agency and action can explain and enable the development entrepreneurial community organisations.

There is a selective literature review of prior works on the related fields of community and collective entrepreneurship; collectives and intelligence; agency and action. The review is used to propose a framework of collective entrepreneurial intelligence, agency and action. An interpretive approach is used to research four case studies of community organisations which use CI to generate entrepreneurial outcomes.

The cases are compared with themes from prior literature to develop a conceptual model of four ECI processes which enable intelligence, agency and action: collaborative processes; distributed working; intelligence representations and organisation of infrastructures. These are theorised to discuss ideas, challenges, methods and questions to enhance entrepreneurial actions, based on sharing knowledge and learning, in the context of collective agency, action and intelligence.

The four processes, both together and separately, represent a coherent framework useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities.

The four processes each represent a central area of attention, not only for development, learning, decision-making and leadership within enterprising communities but also for entrepreneurship education in terms of alternative didactics, pedagogies and learning forms.

The improved knowledge on the role of collective agency and CI within entrepreneurial processes is useful for strengthening civil activism and other fruitful forms of entrepreneurial collective processes. This may help solve complicated societal problems where traditional conceptions of entrepreneurship fail.

The conceptual contribution is to explain the dynamic relationships between ECI and action, mediated by collective agency. The role of CI in informing entrepreneurial communities is explored and four enabling processes are proposed. This coherent framework is useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities, whilst informing their learning, decision-making and leadership.

In this chapter, we present a collaborative autoethnographic study with two main layers: first, we share experiences of two separate educational research projects and explore how different dialogic research practices facilitate both participants and researchers to discover the phenomenon being studied; second, we engage in a dialogic conversation to discover our own research practices. Focussing on projects in two different countries (Norway and Canada), our initial centring question for this chapter is: how do our research practices facilitate insight into participants’ real-life experiences and practices? Then turning the light on our own research practices, we ask: what onto-epistemological assumptions shape our dialogical research practices? The chapter reveals that dialogic research practices allowed collective wisdom to be discovered and ensured that we were able to break through the taken-for-grantedness both of the concept being studied and of our own research practices.

This study aims to use a theoretical-based case study of two distinct ownership groups of the Jack Daniel’s brand to explore how rhetorical history (i.e. malleability of the past for strategic goals) may evoke and capitalize on different forms of nostalgia. Within, the authors configure four forms of nostalgia (i.e. personal, historical, collective and cultural) from the individual or collective interaction and level of direct experience one has with the past as lived or happened.

This study uses an historical research approach which involved the identification of primary and secondary sources, facility tour, source criticism and triangulation to create themes of rhetorical history infused with nostalgic narratives using compelling evidence through rich description of this fusion.

The findings reveal how nostalgia-driven narratives reflecting different collective longing for the re-creation of an American Paradise Lost used by Jack Daniel (i.e. the man) and later but differently by Brown-Forman. This study uncovers how the company’s inherited past was used rhetorically throughout its history, beginning with the nostalgic story of Jack Daniel and the distillery’s nostalgically choreographed location in Lynchburg, Tennessee. This study delves into this setting to highlight the importance of symbols, details, emotional appeals and communications for collective memory and identity development and to showcase the ways in which they are influenced by different types and forms of nostalgia.

This study adds to a limited number of studies focused on understanding the impact of founders on an organization’s brand and how that is malleable. This study responds to scholarly calls to study the influence of sequenced historical rhetoric on an organization and highlight the relevance of social emotions such as nostalgia for rhetorical history. Finally, the theoretical contribution involves the advancing and construction of a theory typology of nostalgia previously proposed by Havlena and Holak in 1996.

The paper aims to explore, using an analysis of the three components of memes content, form and stance – whether and how the memes offer a broad picture of a specific society during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

The author collected, from the two largest Facebook groups in Israel, 25 memes with the largest number of likes in each month, beginning from the month in which awareness of COVID-19 increased significantly, between March 2020 and February 2019. A total of 597 memes were collected. The data were analyzed by a quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Findings indicate that meme culture effectively reflects a society’s situation and the challenges it faces. Memes also reflect local cultural icons and effects. Meme contents vary across groups. During a crisis, memes do not function as fertile groups for sharp criticism or calls to take action to resolve society’s social ills.

Memes may serve as a tool to understand and explore an unfamiliar, foreign culture, its state of mind and its history through meme culture.

Memes may constitute a platform for relieving stress through light-hearted humor, unaccompanied by a true call to action; that is, “slacktivism” which gives a sense of active participation without involvement in actual activities for change.

The study reveals that the Israeli meme culture is not activist and rather focuses on humor to relieve stress. Memes may be used as “bread and circuses” or a means of “slacktivism” that fails to call to genuine activism.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2022-0381

This study aims to help develop “business principles for stakeholder capitalism” in two steps. First, the study defines internal logic of three theories of capitalism and two variants within each theory. Second, it examines approaches to integration into modern democratic capitalism. Treating the three theories as substitutes identifies relative strengths and weaknesses; complementarity and partial overlap approaches to integration study the institutional settings within which stakeholder capitalism operates. Empirical outcomes reflect competition between market and stakeholder businesses for participants, with institutional conditions determining the scope of collective action.

The approach aligns three typologies in a unique conceptual arrangement defining the three theories of capitalism: forms of capitalism, potential failures of each form and associated types of goods. The first method examines the internal logic of each theory of capitalism. The second draws on traditional narrative review of references documenting each theory of capitalism and variants together with modern Marxist anti-capitalism.

Three typologies align uniquely with the theories of capitalism, each having two variants. Both variants of stakeholder capitalism are compatible with compassionate capitalism, constitutional government or polycentric governance but not with self-interest capitalism, dictatorship or Marxism. A theory of modern democratic capitalism allocates roles for private, club and social goods with empirically variable mixes occurring across countries. Competition among different types of enterprises provides an empirical test for comparative advantages of stakeholder capitalism. Future research should consider approaches for testing the proposed conceptual scheme in practice concerning capacity to deal with grand challenges, wicked problems and black swan events.

Research approach is limited to logical examination of theories and literature documentation without direct empirical confirmation. The study does not address practical implications for managers and public officials or social implications concerning private incentives, stakeholder cooperation or collective action.

Originality lies in shifting terms of debate about stakeholder capitalism from advocacy of substitute theories to understanding of its relationship to market capitalism and collective action capitalism. Value lies in explaining desirability of theoretical integration of three types of capitalism into a comprehensive framework for modern democratic capitalism.

Collective political traumas emerge from human behavior as a result of political motivation. These events include destructive and intense violence that disrupt the biopsychosocial processes of people in general. A study was conducted on individuals involved in the conflict between the Kurds in southeastern Turkey and security forces. This study aims to determine whether perceived social support, assumptions about the world, psychological resilience and psychological symptoms predict post-traumatic growth (PTG). In addition, the study examines whether differences existed between the participants’ PTG and the four cited variables according to the type of trauma and major sociodemographic variables.

This study recruited 324 individuals who completed the PTG Inventory, Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale, World Assumption Scale, Brief Psychological Resilience Scale and Symptom Checklist-90-R Symptom Screening List. Data were analyzed using regression analysis, ANOVA and t-test for independent groups.

Analysis revealed that assumptions about the world, perceived social support and level of psychological symptoms significantly predicted PTG level. The level of psychological symptoms was significantly higher among individuals exposed than those not exposed to prison. Moreover, participants with low levels of education and income displayed low levels of social support and psychological resilience but high levels of psychological symptoms. When working with victims of collective political trauma, the fact that people who are exposed to prison and torture experience and those with low socioeconomic levels pose serious risks in terms of psychological problems must be considered.

This research is important because it collects data on the effects of collective political traumas.

The nonmaterial dimension of reality is contrasted with the material, observable and empirically verifiable dimension that rose to dominance with the Enlightenment. The nonmaterial dimension includes orientation, memes, tacit knowledge and spirituality. The orientation of an individual, group, or institution can be towards violence – getting ahead at the expense of the other – or blessing – working in such a way that there is mutual benefit. Orientations can be expressed through memes, cultural or behavioural patterns that are mimetically transmitted broadly within a society and diachronically through generations. If they catch on within a group, they can determine the institutional or group culture. Spirituality can be a source of change of orientation from violence to blessing and of growth in creativity, resilience and empowerment. David Peat and David Bohm posit an implicate order in the universe, thought as a system (in the context of dialogue), and gentle action. Neil Douglas-Klotz points out that the Aramaic words malkuta d'bwashmaya (kingdom of heaven) used by Jesus constituted a nonmaterial reality containing vision, norms and empowerment that exists within and among us – like the implicate order – and is accessed by those who truly wish to ‘see’ it. The emerging spirituality coming out of this engagement has a capacity to replace memes like those of empire, self-interest and grandiose leaders with memes that channel passions and energy towards bio-interest, transnational interest, transpersonal interest, empathy and widespread empowerment. And this could make all the difference in effecting truly sustainable development.

This study aims to reveal how chief executive officer (CEO) transformational leadership affects business model innovation (BMI) by exploring the serial mediating role of top management team (TMT) collective energy and behavioral integration and the moderating role of TMT-CEO value congruence.

The sample of 520 TMT members from 127 enterprises in North China was collected through a two-wave questionnaire survey. Hierarchical regression and bootstrapping were used to test the hypothetical relationships proposed in this study.

The results indicate that TMT collective energy and behavioral integration play a serial mediation role between CEO transformational leadership and BMI. TMT-CEO value congruence positively moderates the relationship between CEO transformational leadership and TMT collective energy as well as the serial mediation effect.

The results suggest that CEOs can stimulate TMT collective energy by demonstrating transformational leadership behaviors, thereby promoting TMT behavioral integration and ultimately achieving BMI. In addition, to enhance the effectiveness of CEO transformational leadership, enterprises should take measures to ensure that TMT members hold values that are consistent with those of CEOs.

Based on social cognitive theory, the mediating mechanism and boundary conditions of CEO transformational leadership that affect BMI are revealed by this study, thus opening the “black box” of the relationship between the two. It also supplements research on the role of TMT among the antecedents of BMI.

The purpose of this paper is to give an updated overview over the development of employee-ownership in Italy, France, Spain including Mondragon, the UK and the US with relatively many employee-owned firms. How have the barriers for employee-ownership been overcome in these countries?

The overview is based on updated descriptions of the development of employee-ownership included in this special issue. The analysis follows the structure of overcoming five barriers: the organization problem; the problem of entry and exit of employee-owners; the startup and takeover problem; the capital- and the risk problem.

Italy, France and Spain have overcome the barriers by specific legislation for worker cooperatives, this includes rules for entry and exit of employee members. Cooperative support organizations play an important role for monitoring and managing the startup problem and for access to capital. The Mondragon model includes individual ownership elements and a group structure of cooperatives. The EOT and ESOP models are well suited for employee takeovers, financing are eased by tax advantages and they are all-employee schemes. While the EOT has no individual risks, the ESOP model has the possibility for capital gains for employees but also the risk of losing these gains.

Comprehensive and updated overview of the development in employee-ownership in the five countries to identify successful formats of employee-ownership for implementation in countries with few employee-owned firms.