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Previous literature has emphasized that social enterprises (SEs) are challenged by their pursuit of divergent social and financial goals, often resulting in tensions leading to a mission drift. This study aims to provide an alternative view wherein these organizations fail to make deliberate and exclusive choices between their goals. In this paper, the authors critically review previous findings on mission drift and present a new concept built on the paradox theory.

This conceptual paper draws upon previous literature on mission drift in SEs. The authors took an integrative review approach to provide an overview of the topic in which the research is still interdisciplinary. The paradox theory approach has been used to guide the discussion and expand the findings.

The authors put forward the concept of spaces of vulnerability, which arise from the tensions faced by SEs between their social and financial objectives and which can lead them to suffer mission drift. The authors propose to shift attention from the sources and strategies of mission drift to the processes involved in the composition of those spaces where missions can become more vulnerable but not necessarily drift.

This perspective adds value to practitioners by increasing the likelihood of SEs surviving multiple logics and clarifying conflicts between social and financial goals in advance. Founders and managers might not only balance their dual missions but also understand their respective roots underlying typologies with regards to decision-making.

The authors enrich the literature by exploring how SEs can deal with tensions related to their multiple goals and sustain their social mission in the long term by offering a theoretical discussion and new forms to consider their dual objectives.

An adaptable, integrated full glass cockpit and flight management system has been developed and is in production for application in multiple Sikorsky rotorcraft. The entire system was conceived, designed, tested and delivered in an unusually short time period. A systematic process was used to define the avionics system attributes, major capabilities, and cost targets up‐front and track them during the development program. First flight was achieved 12 months after contract start, and production deliveries commenced 5 months after first flight. The integrated glass cockpit has accumulated more than 9,000 flight hours in customer operations to date. This flexible system architecture allowed the team of Sikorsky and Rockwell Collins to reuse several blocks of existing military and civil application software, and to interface the various Avionics subsystems using industry standards. This proved to be a critical factor in allowing us to meet the compressed design and development schedule.

This paper aims to examine the factors that influence and collectively conspire to inhibit social enterprises’ abilities to flourish in geographies of economic and social deprivation. Drawing upon the extant literature, it deploys a Delphi study to rank the relative importance of these factors.

A two-round Delphi study has been used to assess the relative importance of the issues that beset social enterprises. The research panel consisted of owner-managers of nine social enterprises from South Wales (UK).

The findings indicate that the prime challenge faced by social enterprise owner-managers is balancing their dual mission. The difficulties faced in delivering social value while remaining financially viable is one that appears to impinge upon the other strategic and operational challenges they face.

The generalizability of this study that utilizes expert insight is dependent upon the nature of the panel. In this instance, social enterprise owner-managers studied operated within a socially deprived region of the UK. The relative influence of the tensions that affect social enterprises in less impoverished areas of the UK or other geographies may well differ.

Drawing upon the extant literature that examines the tensions that surround social enterprises, the prevailing factors are considered and ranked of significance. The resulting ranking provides a crystallised vantage point for policy and support. This could be used to better inform the allocation of resources to facilitate a favourable eco system capable of supporting social enterprises who operate in areas troubled by economic and social deprivation.

This chapter explores social enterprises as an alternative and addition to traditional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs). It reviews the substantial social enterprise literature in order to identify the myriad of competing tensions constraining development and success of social EEs in areas of significant poverty and economic deprivation. Following this, the findings of several contemporary and novel studies are discussed. These collectively evidence ways social enterprises are overcoming the seemingly immutable constraints they operate under. In particular, the Social Enterprise Places initiative has been highly effective in supporting the development of flourishing social EEs in many locations in the UK. However, the growth of social enterprises, both in number and economic importance, presents further challenges that social enterprise owners and managers will have to contend with. Consequently, these organisations and their allied ecosystems require continued structural, financial and skills support.

While education policymakers in Asian polities find it difficult to resist the English language which has attained a new status in “late capitalism”, prevailing policy-level perceptions also suggest that a ruthless adoption of English may undermine national languages, identities and cultures. Despite the heightened commercialisation of English as a global language this policy dilemma raises some critical questions. For example, how can individual entrepreneurs also acting as “language policy actors” effectively promote for-profit English teaching ventures without being accused of compromising national interests, identities and traditions? This article makes a modest attempt towards addressing these questions by conducting a critical analysis of Li Yang’s English teaching venture called “Crazy English” in China and its underlying discourses.

From a sample of English teaching resources available on its official website, this paper identifies and discusses four major discourses on the relationship between English and individual entrepreneurship in English on the one hand and Chinese and China’s national values and interests on the other.

This paper argues that collectively these discourses represent a model of “edu-business” in English language teaching that reconciles the dichotomies between nationalism and post-nationalism, individualism and collectivism and public and private interests in a neoliberal world.

With the onset of globalisation and its impact on all aspects of life including the economy, education and communication, there have been on-going debates on the emerging tensions between the nation-state and the forces of trans/post-nationalism, the latter being underpinned by neo-liberalism. These tensions have also been observed in the fields of English and English language education. While research has examined how macro-level policymakers respond to globalisation through their English language policies, there has been limited work on how individual language policy actors engaged in the commercialisation of English reconcile the apparently irreconcilable forces of nationalism and post-nationalism. The contribution of the present article lies in illustrating a case that seeks to reconcile these forces through discourses and discursive strategies.

Social enterprises (SEs) face tensions when combining financial and social missions, and this is particularly evident in the scaling process. Although extant research mainly focuses on SEs that integrate their social and financial missions, this study aims to unpack social impact scaling strategies in differentiated hybrid organizations (DHOs) through the case of African SEs.

The study entails an inductive multiple case study approach based on four case SEs: work integration social enterprises (WISEs) and fair trade producer social enterprises (FTPSEs) in Uganda and Kenya. A total of 24 semi-structured interviews were collected together with multiple secondary data sources and then coded and analyzed through the rigorous Gioia et al. (2013) methodology to build a theoretical model.

The results indicate that SEs, as differentiated hybrids, implement four types of social impact scaling strategies toward beneficiaries and benefits (penetration, bundling, spreading and diversification) and unveil different dual mission tensions generated by each scaling strategy. The study also shows mutually reinforcing mechanisms named cross-bracing actions, which are paradoxical actions connected to one another for navigating tensions and ensuring dual mission during scaling.

This study provides evidence of four strategies for scaling social impact, with associated challenges and response mechanisms based on the cross-bracing effect between social and financial missions. Thus, the research provides a clear framework (social impact scaling matrix) for investigating differentiation in hybridity at scaling and provides new directions on how SEs scale their impact, with implications for social entrepreneurship and dual mission management literature.

The model offers a practical tool for decision-makers in SEs, such as managers and social entrepreneurs, providing insights into what scaling pathways to implement (one or multiples) and, more importantly, the implications and possible solutions. Response mechanisms are also useful for tackling specific tensions, thereby contributing to addressing the challenges of vulnerable, marginalized and low-income individuals. The study also offers implications for policymakers, governments and other ecosystem actors such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social investors.

Despite the growing body of literature on scaling social impact, only a few studies have focused on differentiated hybrids, and no evidence has been provided on how they scale only the social impact (without considering commercial scaling). This study brings a new perspective to paradox theory and hybridity, showing paradoxes come into view at scaling, and documenting how from a differentiation approach to hybridity, DHOs also implemented cross-bracing actions, which are reinforcement mechanisms, thus suggesting connections and synergies among the actions in social and financial mission, where such knowledge is required to better comprehend how SEs can achieve a virtuous cycle of profits and reinvestments in social impact.

How does organisational mission affect the development of social entrepreneurship and social innovation? Based on the theoretical perspective of social innovation, the aim of this paper is to empirically analyse the impact of the organisation’s dual mission (social and economic) on social entrepreneurship and social innovation, as well as to discover the effect of the latter on the performance of organisations.

Using data from 213 social economy firms, the authors conduct an empirical test of hypotheses using structural equation modelling.

The empirical study shows that an organisation’s dual mission (social and economic) has a positive effect on social entrepreneurship. However, the results suggest that the creation of social innovations is based more on social dimensions than on the economic interest of companies. The results also confirm that companies willing to embark on social projects can develop new products or services that address social needs.

The findings not only supply empirical evidence that helps clarify the effects of economic and social missions on organisational performance but they also offer guidance to companies on the role of social innovation in strengthening organisations.

Examining multilevel effects of financial and social performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs), the authors aim to investigate microfinance mission drift from the trend effect. The authors also seek to move the literature forward by decomposing the performance variance at different levels and examining whether and how much each level of analysis matters.

Growth curve modeling and variance decomposition analysis were conducted using a dataset consisting of 17,953 observations of 2,902 microfinance institutions in 122 countries from 1999 to 2017.

The study's result shows no evidence of mission drift in the microfinance industry. While MFIs improve their economic returns, they also increase the depth of outreach. In addition, firm-level heterogeneity is the dominant effect which explains 44% of the variance in microfinance financial performance (ROA) and 39% of the variance in social performance (Depth of outreach). The country-level is more critical in explaining financial performance (ROA) than social performance (Depth of outreach), accounting for 11 and 32% of the total variance, respectively. In particular, the interplay between the country-level and organizational-category level accounts for 9 and 11% of the total variance in financial performance (ROA) and social performance (Depth of outreach), respectively.

This study’s multilevel analysis of microfinance performances moves the literature forward by responding to the debate on microfinance mission drift and providing a comprehensive overview of both social and financial performance. By focusing on the trend effect, the result of our models shows that MFIs improve both financial and social performance to fulfill dual missions. The microfinance business model becomes sustainable over time. The study's results of country effect and its interaction effect with different organizational categories reveal the prominence of a good policy design on MFI's mission fulfillment.

Three decades ago, the National Audit Office (NAO) in the UK acquired the powers to evaluate the extent that the British Administration was managed with economy, efficiency and effectiveness. The NAO has since adopted a dual mission: to help Parliament hold government to account and to improve public service. This study aims to investigate value-for-money (VFM) auditors’ internalisation of a dual organisational identity: “obstructive” actions as representatives of a Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) and “enabling good practice”, induced by a will stated in the mission that the NAO authorities have adopted.

The organisational identity held and promoted by VFM auditors working at the NAO was explored in this research project. The authors specifically examined the understanding of those who claim to be serving both Parliament and organisations audited in their quest for performance improvement. The authors prompted the auditors to explain how they manage to reconcile these seemingly incompatible roles, namely, that of guardians and watchdogs who must publicly report gaps noted and that of assistants in government’s learning process. To this end, the authors conducted a field study at the NAO in September 2012 during which 21 auditors were interviewed individually and as part of two discussion groups.

The findings indicate that the auditors interviewed do not perceive a dichotomy in NAO’s double mission, which they believe to be congruent with their audience’s expectations. They draw meaning and usefulness from their role of monitoring the Administration if they believe they have contributed to improve public affairs management. In their view, the singular role of guardian no longer suffices. The authors conclude that VFM auditors’ recently acquired identity of “moderniser” reflects a self-efficacy expectation that prevents them from recognising the apparent paradox within their dual identity and that lets them fantasise about their real influence on the Administration.

Admittedly, the limited number of auditors interviewed and who took part in discussion groups is not conducive to generalisation of the conclusions to all auditors in the NAO or to other SAIs. However, although modest in number, the auditor respondents have accumulated many years of VFM audit practice and have contributed to the production of many reports. The respondents could therefore rightfully speak of their work as VFM auditors and as representatives of an institution such as the NAO.

This study contributes to the debates about the place and role of SAIs in the control environment of Administrations. By soliciting testimonials from the actors working within the NAO, the authors could thus question certain a priori assumptions held by stakeholders in the political and administrative world for whom auditors are mere “watchdogs” of Administrations, and nothing more.

The dual mission that the NAO has adopted (similar to many other SAIs) has been formally and publicly stated. It was therefore worth investigating how experienced auditors such as those interviewed had internalised this mission. The authors argue that this dual mission, perhaps inspired by the managerialist culture that has shaped changes to the British Administration (and many other occidental Administrations) since the early 1980s and that is seemingly encouraged by Government, twists the legislator’s intentions, which are to consider SAIs’ auditors as guardians and watchdogs of Administrations, not as agents of change and improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role a full range of activities can play to combat mission drift in a social enterprise. In doing so, it expands understanding of integrated activities to recognize the role of indirect support activities and an activity ecosystem to sustain mission. This paper also provides practical implications about the process for creating such an ecosystem.

This paper relies on an in-depth qualitative study of a for-profit company that later in life became an employee-owned benefit corporation. Data include interviews, informal and formal company documents and a site visit.

This paper expands the definition of activity integration to recognize indirect mission support, highlights the role an activity ecosystem plays to ensure the viability of these activities, and identifies a set of rules and a three-step process to create the reinforcing ecosystem.

Commonly, activities are integrated if the company earns revenues through pursuit of its social mission and differentiated if the company earns revenues not related to its social mission. By comparison, this paper argues for a more nuanced definition of activities to recognize indirect mission support and its role in reinforcing a dual mission.