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Compares the marketing functions of social enterprises with that of private enterprise, and discusses the management problems involved in the selection and implementation of a social enterprise strategy. Purports that the marketing function in a social enterprise, as in other types of enterprise, is concerned with decisions relating to the level, composition, and distribution of the output. Recognises that marketing mix decisions – e.g. product, price, place, and promotional decision – provide one specific way of determining the output enterprise. Concludes that the marketing planning problem, in a social enterprise, is a complex one, and success depends on the twin elements of operating flexibility and consumer participation.

Social enterprises are competitive businesses in the marketplace, yet insubstantial research has investigated how they market their businesses. This paper aims to investigate the impact a social enterprise label – “Buy the Good Stuff” – used in Edinburgh has had on consumer awareness and explore whether a possible national label could be used as a marketing tool by social enterprises in Scotland.

The study uses a mixed-methods approach, consisting of an online questionnaire with 100 participants and seven semi-structured interviews with representatives of social enterprises involved in the marketing campaign in Edinburgh and representatives of social enterprises who were not involved in the campaign.

Findings indicate that the label used in Edinburgh has had little impact on increasing consumer awareness of social enterprises. However, a national label has the potential to help social enterprises increase consumer awareness. Yet, successful implementation requires thorough design of the label and broad support for its promotion.

The paper offers insights into the implementation of a national label. Managers of social enterprises and social enterprise networks should consider the findings when adopting marketing activities.

Findings contribute to the sparse literature regarding marketing activities of social enterprises. The paper provides evidence that the broader social enterprise sector and its representatives in Scotland should re-evaluate their position on the introduction of a national label, given that one priority identified for the sector is to create and promote a social enterprise brand which the SE code is not focussed on.

The purpose of this paper is to build understanding of the concept of social enterprise in the social marketing community and to report on empirical research designed to develop an understanding the perceptions and practices of marketing within social enterprises. This addresses a significant gap in the current literature base and also provides insights for social marketers seeking to pursue social change initiatives through social enterprise.

This empirical investigation uses a qualitative investigation of 15 social enterprises informed by a grounded theory approach. Researchers conducted interviews with senior decision-makers responsible for marketing activities and strategic policy, and gathered additional data regarding the organizations in the form of archival materials, including strategic planning documents, promotional materials and firm-generated online content.

Strategic marketing practices used by social enterprises are shaped by moral, pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy influences stemming from imperatives to achieve congruence with institutional norms. This study exposes the challenges social enterprises face in developing strategic marketing activities that address business needs, while balancing stakeholder interests linked to the social missions of such organizations.

This qualitative study pursues depth of understanding through focused investigation of a small, regional sample of Canadian social enterprises. The findings demonstrate that social enterprises are similar to both not-for-profit and small- and medium-sized firms in terms of their marketing approaches, but face particular institutional legitimacy challenges when developing and implementing strategic marketing activities.

This paper highlights the influences of institutional legitimacy on marketing practices and approaches in social enterprises. Understanding these influences is crucial for social marketing practitioners, as they develop strategic activities. The findings from the research provide a baseline upon which to begin to build both our theoretical and practical understanding of the potential utilization of social marketing through social enterprises.

Understanding the challenges social enterprises face in developing their strategic marketing activities provides deeper insights into social enterprises for social marketers, who might consider using social marketing in such organizations to achieve social change.

This paper offers empirical evidence grounded in depth investigations of 15 social enterprises operating in a Canadian context. The findings help to extend our understanding of the complex institutional influences impacting marketing practices within social enterprise organizations. These institutional influences help to attune social marketers to the potential opportunities and challenges of using social enterprise as an organizational form for launching social marketing programs.

This paper presents some of the findings to emerge from a qualitative study of social enterprise in the UK. The findings discussed in this paper refer to the marketing activities of social enterprises and consider the extent to which these can be described as “entrepreneurial”. This discussion suggests that while social enterprises do engage in entrepreneurial marketing, the local embeddedness of their activities, their not‐for‐profit orientation and challenges posed by social exclusion impact on their marketing activities.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the tensions that marketing practitioners in social enterprises experience, and to explore how these tensions impact the development and implementation of marketing activities.

Using an approach informed by grounded theory, this paper reports on an investigation of the tensions facing 15 social enterprises. The primary data comprises semi-structured interviews with senior marketing decision-makers, supplemented with archival sources.

The analysis shows tensions and dualities inform the social and commercial strategic marketing activities of the social enterprises. These tensions and dualities are linked to how the organization obtains financial resources, the nature of the organization’s growth, working with myriad stakeholders and competitive versus cooperative pressures. A model outlining the dualities and their links to marketing activities is developed.

The study provides an in-depth analysis of a small, regional sample of Canadian social enterprises. The study serves as a foundation for future research aimed at elaborating the model we propose.

The findings point to tensions and dualities that play an important role in enabling and restricting the development and implementation of strategic marketing activities in social enterprises. Understanding the nature of these dualities is crucial for social enterprise managers and social marketers as they develop strategic activities.

Social enterprises engage in activities that offer substantial social benefits, yet the development of marketing activities in these organizations requires confronting tensions that must be carefully managed.

This paper highlights how dualities facing marketing practitioners in social enterprises influence the development of both social and for-profit marketing activities. The paper offers a model of these dualities. The findings help to extend our understanding of the complex environmental influences impacting marketing practices within social enterprise organizations. Understanding the nature of these environmental influences helps to attune marketers to the potential opportunities and challenges of using social enterprise as an organizational form for launching social marketing programs, as well as providing a theoretical basis for future investigations of marketing practice in social enterprise and social marketing organizations.

The paper aims to understand how resource constraints are addressed in the development of a marketing strategy by a social enterprise.

The authors have used an in-depth case study of collaboration between a Finnish university and an Indian social enterprise as the methodology for the research in which the data were collected over a period of two years. The data involve semi-structured interviews, field notes and student reports.

The authors propose bricolage as a method of marketing ingenuity in resource-constrained social enterprises. Network bricolage and entrepreneurship education bricolage were identified as two mechanisms adopted to address resource constraints in the early stage of the development of a social enterprise. Further studies need to be conducted to test the applicability of network bricolage among a variety of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups. Bricolage could be explored in more detail as an alternative to resource leveraging to understand the marketing activities of social businesses in their initial stages.

Network bricolage is a type of bricolage in which an entrepreneur utilizes existing personal and professional networks as a resource at hand. Although networking and resource leveraging imply that the founders of an organization pursue resources from previously unknown people, network bricolage involves already known contacts of the entrepreneur.

Another type of bricolage that observed by the authors was entrepreneurship education bricolage. A combination of students, business mentors and university resources such as faculty members was utilized as an ingenuity mechanism to develop creative solutions for a shortage of marketing resources.

The theoretical framework of entrepreneurial bricolage is applied in the context of the marketing of a social enterprise.

Digital marketing is becoming the dominant marketing communication method for companies and consumers around the world. The reason for this is due to the real time communication advantages that make it an effective marketing method. The aim of this chapter is to focus on how digital marketing relates to social entrepreneurship in Vietnam, thereby offering a new perspective on the role of social entrepreneurship in developing digital marketing techniques. This will contribute to the existing literature on digital marketing and social entrepreneurship by extending it to an emerging economy setting. Implications for practitioners and policymakers are given that highlight the need for more social enterprises to incorporate digital marketing techniques.

This paper aims to explore the role of marketing as a route to sustainability for social enterprises providing public services. It examines the tensions between the economic and social objectives, both of social enterprises and of marketing. It concludes by offering a new model of the role of marketing for sustainable social enterprises.

This paper used the case study approach which included four cases. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the chief executives of each social enterprise. The cases were classified by age.

The paper demonstrates that while marketing potentially has much to offer in terms of organisational resilience for social enterprises, its application is currently undermined by its misunderstanding in practise within a “product-dominant” business logic. Despite this, the study finds a strong element of the unconscious application of marketing by social enterprises.

The implications of this are discussed in the context of the “public service-dominant” business logic that is currently emerging in public management, and recommendations are made for policy and practice as to how to enhance the contribution of marketing, both to sustainable social enterprises and to public services delivery.

The purpose of this paper is to review existing literature on marketing in social enterprises (SEs). It identifies major trends and issues and highlights gaps in the existing knowledge base on social enterprise marketing (SEM).

Relevant articles on SEM were searched, following the PRISMA framework, in online databases using keywords and phrases like “marketing in social enterprises,” “marketing strategy/practice in social enterprises,” “social enterprise marketing” and “business practices in social enterprises.” After screening and checking for eligibility, 47 significant articles published in 21 peer-reviewed journals during 1995–2018 were selected for review.

The findings suggest that marketing in SEs has different issues and challenges when compared to marketing practices adopted by conventional business organizations. They are forced to address the varied expectations of the stakeholders in a resource-constrained situation, which creates problems for them. The review also highlights the fact that resource constraints, legacy mindset, and lack of marketing skills limit the impact of marketing practices in SEs. To address these issues, many social entrepreneurs survive through cost-effective marketing techniques.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first effort to identify and analyze extant literature in SEM. The resultant themes and research gaps highlight the current status of SEM literature. The paper can help SEs to understand and plan their marketing activities for better impact and profitability. Future research can draw on the findings of this review.

This paper aims to present a value cocreation framework that furthers understanding of social value cocreation.

This paper is an interdisciplinary conceptual analysis drawing on social enterprise studies, marketing research and philosophical value theory. It applies a visible-hand approach to the study of market relationships and, in line with philosophical research strategies, unfolds its analysis using conceptual distinctions.

This study provides a framework that substantiates the distinction between two modes of value cocreation and identifies the structure of the social enterprise business model. It explains how social enterprises can be conceived as role models for for-profit organizations, and it elucidates why social value cocreation is a demanding objective.

This paper develops an integrative, nondichotomist view of value cocreation that does not conceptualize social and economic value cocreation as opposing goals.

Social enterprises can use the business model structure and two modes of value cocreation and view themselves as role models for for-profit organizations.

This paper applies a visible-hand approach to both for-profit organizations and social enterprises. Using its framework, for-profit organizations can reflect on the consequences of their actions on society and how social value cocreation can improve social enterprise effectiveness.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to bridge service-oriented approaches to marketing and social enterprise studies using philosophical value theory to improve understanding of social value cocreation.