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This paper aims to understand how social value is created in a context characterized by institutional complexity. By identifying stakeholders interacting in a social enterprise and the logics guiding their expected and experienced value, the study describes how social value is created when different institutional logics embedded in strong-tie networks are bridged.

Concepts of structural holes and institutional logics were applied to the empirical case of a social enterprise. Interviews provided the primary empirical material, but multiple data collection methods were used.

A shared goal facilitated co-existence of competing value logics, and provided common space forming multiple social value outcomes as products of the different logics.

Limited to one case, this study shows that the interaction of otherwise unconnected stakeholders in a social enterprise, and their embeddedness in different institutional logics, provides one explanation for why and how social value is created.

Acknowledging and addressing gaps in knowledge and resources can lead to social value creation if social enterprises remain open to different logics. This suggests that co-existence of different logics can be a key factor for successful social value creation in social enterprises, if the competing logics are turned into complementary sources.

Dependency on logics from different networks of stakeholders shapes social enterprises to produce outcomes consistent with the different logics. The multiplicity of social value outcomes poses challenges for evaluating the success of social enterprises, especially when the tendency is to use evaluation approaches from the for-profit sector, focusing on the economic logic.

This review investigates the extent and content of research into rural firm growth, and identifies and describes various approaches to studying firm growth.

The paper is guided by the systematic literature review framework which, combined with a qualitative assessment, ensures a rigorous review. An initial set of 200 peer reviewed articles was included in the review. During the quality assessment stage this set was reduced to 50 articles which were analysed in depth.

Three approaches to firm growth are identified and explored, focusing on the output, process and context of firm growth. The results further indicate increasing interest in rural firm growth and identify six themes constituting the research field.

Firm growth is advocated as a solution to development challenges, especially in rural settings. However, the firm growth literature is dominated by outcome-based research, often focused on technology-based businesses in dynamic urban regions, whose results are not easily transferable to rural contexts. This review contributes by mapping the current state of knowledge in the field, by articulating and discussing taken-for-granted assumptions with regard to firm growth and by identifying three approaches to firm growth, of which the context approach is the least common but which may prove valuable to further increase in the understanding of rural firm growth.