Search results

Taking China as a research context, the purpose of this paper is to delineate how social and business tensions manifest in Chinese nascent social enterprises and to disentangle the strategies that they adopt to manage the business-social dual goals to achieve organizational viability.

A qualitative multiple-case study is used to collect and analyze data. Empirical data are drawn from in-depth semi-structured interviews with Chinese social entrepreneurs, ethnographic observation of social enterprises as well as secondary sources.

Depending on personal motivations and resource availability, social entrepreneurs’ perceptions toward pursuit of dual goals range from integration to differentiation in the short term, despite consensus on the concurrent development in the long term. The leverage of resources, image management, continuous innovation and need-based services are viable approaches that Chinese social enterprises adopt to manage the dual goals in order to create both social and economic value.

This paper reveals understanding of the concrete tensions experienced among Chinese nascent social enterprises in pursuing business and social goals and how they manage to integrate the synergistic aspects of social and business goals to achieve survival and growth. Based primarily on qualitative case study method, the research findings are context specific and may not be ideal for generalization.

The authors reveal strategies by which synergistic benefits between dual goals may be achieved. Innovation (e.g. in resource utilization, in service format and content) and differentiation (e.g. in organization positioning) would be beneficial in enhancing the competitiveness of social enterprises. To enhance organizations’ credibility, quality of products and service should be monitored and organizational transparency needs to be enhanced.

It is suggested that the government specifies legal forms and legitimates interests of social enterprises, formulates preferential policies to stimulate the development of social enterprises, and develops a set of qualification authentication system to regulate this emerging sector.

The study examines the manifestation of business and social tensions and presents dual-goal management strategies from a non-western perspective. As an original contribution to the field of social entrepreneurship, the study responds to calls for in-depth analysis of conflicting objectives and tension management in social enterprises.

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between (dual) organizational identity and individual heuristics – simple rules and biases – in the process of strategy change. This paper offers a theory on identity reflexivity as a cognitive mechanism of strategy change in the context of organizational hybridity.

The authors draw on a 2-year ethnographic study at a Dutch social housing association dealing with the process of strategy change. The empirical data comprises of in-depth semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observations as well as secondary sources.

Conflicting identities at the organizational level influence heuristics at the individual level, since members tend to identify with their department's identity. Despite conflicting interpretations, paths of cognitive shortcuts – that the authors define as internal and external identity reflexivity – are shared by the conflicting identities.

The findings of this research are subject to limitations typical of a qualitative case-study, such as possibly being context dependent. The authors argue that this research contributes to the understanding of how individual heuristics relate to organizational heuristics, and suggest that the process of identity reflexivity can contribute to the alignment of conflicting identities enabling strategy formation in the context of a dual-identity organization.

Understanding how managers with conflicting identities achieve agreements is important to help organizational leaders to pursue sustainability-oriented strategy change.

Given the pressure experienced by mission-driven organizations to integrate multiple sustainability demands in their mission, understanding managers' decision-making mechanism when adapting to new, often conflicting, sustainability demands is important to accelerate societal sustainability transitions.

This paper addresses the process of new strategy design in the context of a socially driven business. This context fundamentally differs from the one addressed by the existing heuristics literature with respect to organizational environment and role, and specific competing demands.

This chapter collects and categorizes the principal theoretical debates respecting corporate law in the United States. What emerges is not a synthetic whole but a dialectic framework. Corporate law's theoretical debates do not resolve; their arguments and conclusions are determined by metapolitical preferences and unverified notions about aligning productivity incentives. But despite the debates, the acknowledged premise that corporations exist to create wealth by producing goods and services at a profit directs all theories of corporate law to two objectives. First, corporate law encourages long-term investment and risk-taking by facilitating a delegation of decision-making authority from the providers of capital to the expert managers who deploy it. Second, corporate law facilitates investment in producing assets at the lowest possible cost of capital, securing the presence of liquid trading markets in corporate securities.

Social enterprises are increasingly recognized as a new form of organization (combining social and business goals) providing innovative and scalable solutions to widespread and complex socioenvironmental problems. Yet, they often struggle to keep themselves afloat due to the difficulty in accessing required resources. Networking approaches provide social enterprises with cost-effective ways to fulfill these resource requirements. Such approaches, although useful, give rise to dilemmas while building ties with both financial and non-financial actors. Although much research has been conducted on social enterprise networking or partnerships, little is known about how social enterprises address such dilemmas. This chapter explores how do social entrepreneurs address moral dilemmas while networking with key stakeholders? To answer this question, we analyze the existing literature to understand the networking strategies adopted and the moral dilemmas experienced by the social entrepreneurs. Based on our review of literature, we present four kinds of social enterprises in terms of their networking situations and choices: (1) secluded saints (less known and less connected; high on moral values); (2) secluded devils (less known and less connected; low on moral values); (3) saints waving at the devils (well known and well connected; low on moral values); (4) saints in the pack of devils (well known and well connected; high on moral values). These categories are used to explain how social enterprises with different values, interact with and use their networks for different purposes. We discuss the possible consequences of each strategy and keep the question, how to reach the state of “successful saints,” open for future research. By presenting these different networking situations, our matrix sheds new lights on different social entrepreneurial networking options and their possible outcomes. This can act as a guide and a cautionary note, not only for the social enterprises but also for any hybrid organizations dealing with conflicting networking choices.

This paper aims to understand the characteristics, factors and contingencies of social partnerships between multinational corporations (MNCs) and nonprofits in the context of sustainability that enable or impede the value creation outcome of the collaboration.

A multi-case study with 12 social partnerships operating in China was investigated considering their relative representativeness and different value creation outcomes.

The author presents a snapshot of the current state and unique differences of social partnerships in China, whereas the existing literature has mostly addressed the topic from a Western context. Moreover, the author highlights the key determinants and contextual features that influence the value creation outcome of social partnerships in China.

This study concentrates on the social partnerships in the largest emerging country context of China, and the representativeness of data collected from a small sample may be challenged. Likewise, the 12 social partnerships studied are similar in design but vary in sustainability focus. To test the validity of the theorizing, the study calls for future research to apply the proposed theoretical framework across various contexts across both developing and developed world.

The paper provides guidance to corporate managers and nonprofit decision-makers on how to improve their social partner initiation, operations and governance so as to generate greater collaborative value out of social partnerships in the Chinese market.

This study contributes to the social partnership literature, which has been dominant in the Western context, by offering case evidences from China.

The study shows that social partnerships are increasingly initiated and sustained in the context of sustainability and corporate social responsibility, with the majority oriented toward “satisficing” instead of “optimizing” and represented mostly with a “philanthropic” and “transactional” approach. The author particularly notes the salience of social exchange, with social partnerships serving as an indirect relational instrument for MNCs to navigate stakeholder relationships in the Chinese market, especially with the dominant resource holder such as the government.

Coopetition is a well-studied phenomenon in traditional enterprises. However, it lacks deepening in the social sphere, specifically on hybrid organizations (social and commercial goals). This paper analyzes the configuration of coopetition strategies in social enterprises and how these strategies can improve social value devolution.

The authors conducted a multicase study with Brazilian social enterprises and a social incubator. Semistructured interviews with founders of the social enterprises and the president of the incubator were the primary sources of evidence, supported by observations and secondary data.

The authors identified four main findings: (1) the social incubator induces coopetition among social enterprises; (2) coopetition is necessary to improve market performance; (3) coopetition is a natural strategy resulting from the activity of the social enterprise; (4) the behavior and context of social enterprises generate a new framework for coopetition formation. This framework comprises three stages of value: a social cooperation level to co-creation of value; second, a social competition level to the appropriation of value; and the third coopetition-balanced level to social value devolution.

The authors advance knowledge on coopetition in an exciting, underexplored context, social entrepreneurship. The authors highlight that the coopetition nature and outcome in social enterprises have specificities compared to traditional businesses. The authors also improve the understanding of social value devolution based on simultaneous cooperation and competition among small social enterprises, allowing theoretical and practical implications. Thus, they advance the recurring discussion in coopetition literature beyond the generation and appropriation of value.

Integrated Case Study, Advanced Management Accounting, Environmental Management Accounting (EMA), Human Resource Management.

This case is designed for undergraduate students in accounting, business or human resource management programmes.

The case is about Irfan, a former Production Manager in Omicron, a small and medium-sized enterprise in Selangor, Malaysia, manufacturing automotive metal parts. Irfan is truly enthusiastic for environmental and cost-reduction tools and wishes to pursue it further to his best possible. The case presents Irfan facing the dilemma of how to align his passion for these tools to his future career choice. He is faced with three options – to remain in Omicron, to accept a job offer in another company or to establish his own consultancy firm. The case highlights the heavy involvement of Irfan in the implementation of a new environmental tool, Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) in Omicron, and all the tasks, activities, benefits and challenges encountered. Being at the ground with the implementation and outputs achieved, Irfan is excited about MFCA and wants to continue with it, due to the rich and valuable experience gained from its implementation and its potential for future savings. However, he does not seem to observe a similar excitement among the higher management. The case details an example of the implementation of MFCA for one of Omicron’s products and other relevant information that could serve as a guidance to any future implementation either in Omicron, the new company or even his own company. The case also provides details about Omicron and how Irfan regard Omicron as his second family to hint a strong pulling factor for Irfan to remain in Omicron, hence providing the extra weight on the dilemma he faces.

In the process of assessing a career choice dilemma for a middle-level manager, students are expected to analyse the three career options available to this middle manager, whose dilemma also relates to his passion of pursuing environment-related and cost-reduction tools. Where the environment is concerned, some parties need extra persuasion to pursue it and this also triggers the middle-manager’s dilemma. This case is intended to provide a tool to enable students to review and discuss matters, such as overcoming obstacles of pursuing environmental-related initiatives and progressing a mid-life career that provides self-fulfilment financially, emotionally and mentally. Among the theories and concepts referred include diffusion of innovations theory, EMA concepts and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The purpose of this article is to determine the future proportion and variants of usage of human intellect and artificial intelligence (AI) in entrepreneurship of industry 4.0 that fits social entrepreneurship the most. It could be convergence (simultaneous utilization during the same entrepreneurial processes with the emphasis on unique features by the terms of the competition) or divergence (usage during different business processes by the terms of labor division).

The authors determine the influence of usage of human capital and AI on the efficiency of social entrepreneurship. The authors identify the perspective directions of usage of AI in social entrepreneurship and evaluate the readiness and interest in the implementation of these directions of concerned parties. The authors also model the optimal proportions and the variant of usage of human intellect and AI in social entrepreneurship in the conditions of Industry 4.0 in the future (until 2030).

It is found that social entrepreneurship will use the opportunities of Industry 4.0 for optimization of its activities until 2030, but will refuse from full automatization, using human intellect and AI at the same time.

The most perspective directions of application of AI at social companies are a collection of social goods and services, marketing studies and promotion of social goods and services. Neither convergence nor divergence of human and artificial intellectual capital does not fully conform to the interests of concerned parties. The most preferable (optimal) variant of usage of human intellect and AI in social entrepreneurship in the Industry 4.0 is human intelligent decision support.