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The purpose of this research is to measure the economic and social/environmental/cultural activity of the social enterprise sector at a provincial level in Canada.

The research was implemented in three phases. In phase one, the structure and content of the mapping instrument was developed and tested. In phase two, the survey was circulated to all verified social enterprises in the sample frame to achieve a large and fully representative probability sample of social enterprises in both provinces. Data were subsequently collected for cleaning, entry, and analysis. Phase three involved the circulation of the survey results to social enterprise‐related networks in both provinces through both participant feedback and de‐briefing workshops.

Social enterprises surveyed had a number of non‐exclusive purposes. Eight (22 percent) Alberta (AB) social enterprises focused on employment and related activities while 51 (51 percent) of social enterprises in British Columbia (BC) had a similar focus. A total of 39 percent in AB and 47 percent of social enterprises in BC generated income for their parent organization. The highest percentage of social enterprises in both provinces (92 percent in AB/71 percent in BC) described themselves as having a social mission while 25 percent of social enterprises in AB and 35 percent in BC had a cultural mission. Environmental activities were pursued by 22 percent social enterprises in AB and 38 percent in BC.

Notwithstanding the inclusion of the non‐profit corporate form in the paper's definition, social enterprise organizational form and legal structure tell us little about the activities or the impact of the organization. This is a tentative finding; it is indicative perhaps of the current, “pre‐institutionalized”, phase of social enterprise development, but more research needs to be conducted to fully examine and to elaborate on this proposition.

Measuring the size, strength and scope of social enterprises contributes to the important constellation of evidence, policy options, and political will that is necessary to put a policy on the political agenda. In BC, the survey results provided policy advocates with the first empirical evidence of the scope, size, and capacity of social enterprises in the province. This, together with existing anecdotal information, case stories, and stakeholder events, helped to convince policy makers that social enterprises are a viable and legitimate entity, worthy of serious policy support.

The aim of this research was to provide relevant and timely information, not to define social enterprises as an end in itself. The operational definition of social enterprise was thus developed with the explicit purpose of conducting this investigation and as such, the authors are confident that it served its purpose. To this end, the authors trust that this survey, and its embedded structural‐functional definition, will contribute to the ongoing exploration of the number and nature of social enterprises in Canada and elsewhere.

This research set out to take stock of the structure, purpose, and operational activity of social enterprises in BC and AB. This was undertaken using a structural‐functional definition of social enterprise as “a business venture, owned or operated by a non‐profit organization that continuously sells goods or provides services in the market for the purpose of creating a blended return on investment; financial, social, environmental, and cultural”.

The purpose of the present study is to build a research model to study how the use of different enterprise social media platforms affects employees' relationship capital, and the moderating role of innovation culture is also examined.

Structural equation modeling was performed to test the research model and hypotheses. Surveys were conducted in an electronic commerce company in China that uses different social media platforms, generating 301 valid responses for analysis.

First, private social media used for work-related purposes can contribute to employees' relationship capital, and public social media QQ used for work-related purposes can contribute to employees' communication quality. WeChat used for social-related purposes has a positive effect on employees' information exchange. Second, innovation culture acts as a positive moderator between work-related media use and employees' information exchange, while innovation culture acts as a negative moderator between social-related WeChat use and employees' information exchange. Third, innovation culture acts as a positive moderator between work-related QQ use and employees' trust, while innovation culture acts as a negative moderator between social-related QQ use and employees' trust.

First, this paper contributes to the information system (IS) social media literature by studying the effect of the use of different enterprise social media platforms used for different purposes on employees' relationship capital. Second, the authors contribute to relationship capital theory by clarifying that use of public and private social media platforms for social- and work-related purposes is an important driver of the formation of employees' relational capital. Third, the present study also contributes to enterprise social media literature by confirming that innovation culture acts as a different moderator between use of different enterprise social media platforms and employees' relationship capital.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight conceptual and technical difficulties in mapping “social enterprise” and “social purpose business” organizations.

This paper reflects on the design and administration of a social enterprise population survey in Ontario, Canada.

Numerous approaches used to frame social enterprise organizations were seriously flawed and fundamentally problematic, and criteria to distinguish social enterprise from other organizations were seemingly arbitrary, unstable, or unworkable.

This paper both contributes to those attempting to empirically research social enterprise organizations, and to the broader discussion concerning whether social enterprise is usefully approached as a distinctive organizational form.

In the performance measurement and management research field, the applicability of performance measurement systems (PMS) in nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and public administration has been considered a challenge. The diversity of these organizations makes it difficult to define proper terminology and organizational characteristics. PMS evolution has not yet been able to capture all performance dimensions of a public administration and, especially for NPO considering its dynamic and multiple goals. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies and classifies the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPOs and public administration.

The study was developed through a systematic literature review (SLR). A set of 29 papers were intensely studied, and the results provide a multi-disciplinary and holistic set of factors.

A set of ten factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration were found. They were categorized into three groups: factor related to purpose, stakeholders and management.

The study synthesized the literature and provided a conceptual framework of the factors that influence the design of PMSs in NPO and public administration. No individual paper collected in the SLR shows a similar organization of the factors as the present paper. The set of factors indicates the importance of this study for NPO and public administration, and how complex a PMS in an NPO and public administration can become. The conceptual model presented can further assist practitioners in developing design process observing the role that the identified factors play.

The currently dominant version of the corporate form – the profit-maximizing corporation – is one of the most influential organizational forms in contemporary society. It is also one of the most criticized organizational forms, especially with respect to questions of purpose, participation, and ownership. The corporation’s strong focus on profit maximization and its non-democratic nature, as it excludes non-shareholding stakeholders from participating in how the corporation is run, have all attracted significant criticism. There are, however, several debates over alternative ways of organizing besides the corporation. In this chapter, we review the most influential of these: co-operatives, state-owned enterprises, democratically organized firms, social enterprises, stakeholder firms, and firms based on the sharing economy business model. We first analyze how these alternative ways of organizing do things differently with respect to questions of purpose, participation, and ownership and then we discuss how these different approaches can inspire efforts to reform the corporation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the Board of Directors in encouraging entrepreneurship as a strategy for goal achievement among newly formed social purpose organizations.

In the absence of empirical work on board behaviour, a qualitative case study approach is adopted whereby multiple data collection methods – including in‐depth interviews and non‐participant observation – are drawn upon in the investigation.

Organizations found to be most effective in achieving their goal(s) had a higher level of entrepreneurial intensity than less effective organizations. Three opposing themes emerged when comparing the social processes adopted by the Boards. In embracing social processes that fostered entrepreneurial behaviour. Boards assumed the role of change agent, with the leveraging of social capital being instrumental. Other social processes encouraged behaviour that was reactive and risk adverse in nature, serving to reinforce the fiduciary role those Board had assumed.

A review of the extant literature indicates that this is the first reported empirical investigation of board behaviour. In having access to Board meetings, unique insights into social processes were garnered that might otherwise have gone undetected if interview data were relied upon as the sole source of evidence. As such, this paper makes a key contribution in beginning to address the void in our understanding of social enterprise governance. In particular, it highlights the influence of governance on entrepreneurship and goal achievement among newly formed social purpose organizations. When viewed through a social constructionist lens, the results indicate that while organizations strive to achieve both legitimacy and identity, effectiveness was greater among organizations that emphasized the latter.

This paper aims to explore the ways in which social supports can promote enduring attachments to work and improve overall well-being of disadvantaged workers, within the context of social purpose enterprises.

With coordinators, managers and directors as informants, this mixed-methods study uses a survey and interviews to establish the availability and importance of different social supports found in social purpose enterprises across Canada, and to explore the reasons for such support mobilization and the influences that determine whether social supports are sought or accepted.

Findings substantiate the prevalence and importance of work-centred social supports. Social supports can promote more sustainable attachment to work by addressing work process challenges, ameliorating workplace conflict, attending to non-vocational work barriers and building workers’ self-confidence and self-belief. The source of a support, as well as the relationship between support providers and recipients, contributes to whether supports will be beneficial to recipients.

Future studies require corroboration directly from the employees and training participants of social purpose enterprises. The limitations on the sampling and the survey response rate may limit generalizability of findings.

Findings contribute to knowledge on more effective social support provision for improved work outcomes and overall well-being of employees and training participants.

Applying theory from social support research brings greater clarity to the potential of work-centred supports for addressing both vocational and non-vocational barriers to employment and job training for disadvantaged workers.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the field of social innovation by examining institutional logics at the level of inter- and intra-organizational partnerships for scaling impact.

The authors use a set of case studies from the Stanford Social Innovation Review to analyze success in scaling social innovations applying the logic compatibility-centrality matrix proposed by Besharov and Smith (2014), which aims to reveal the potential for conflict in organizations based on the diversity of logics present and the degree to which they are compatible with each other.

The findings shed insight on how individuals and organizations are able to manage logic multiplicity in the context of partnerships for scaling social innovation.

The authors build on recent work that recognizes logic multiplicity in social enterprises resulting from their hybrid nature, and the authors add to the existing debate by introducing to the discussion contributions from cognitive theory that help explain why organizational cultures evolve and scale out the way they do.

Financial accounting necessarily depends on an entity assumption that shapes the way it recognizes and accounts for organizational exchanges with social environments. It thereby constructs boundaries and frames permeability in terms of what counts, is accounted for, as being inside and outside of the organization. Yet there are different possible entity concepts reflecting different values about the relationship between the organizational entity and society. This essay considers four problem areas in which these values and the entity–society relationship are at stake within financial accounting: the problem of control within group accounting; accounting for externalities; the economization of public organizations; and the construction of organizational actorhood. These four problematics suggest that financial accounting, its boundary determining assumptions, and the forms of organizational permeability it permits are deeply intertwined and subject to continuous pressure for change.

While management control and performance measurement research and practices have advanced significantly in the last decades, the research and applications to social impacts and social purpose organizations are underdeveloped. This chapter reports on three research studies that have important implications for future research and practice in the use of management control and performance measurement to solve global societal challenges.

This chapter provides new frameworks and performance measurement approaches used in three recent series of research projects. It also provides the results of this extensive research in using existing theories and managerial practices to improve success and the measurement of success in for-profit and nonprofit organizations that are focused on increasing their positive social impacts.

This research that spans more than 20 years and includes numerous projects and research methods in many countries has discovered a prior lack of application of existing theories, approaches, tools, and measures that are fundamental to management control and performance measurement. It found that much work is still needed in both academic research and managerial practices to apply them effectively in social purpose organizations and suggests areas for future research.

By reviewing the literature comprehensively and doing a series of related research projects, this analysis provides a foundation for future research in the applicability of management control and performance measurement approaches to the measurement and improvement of the social impacts of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.