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This article aims to explore the role of organisational legitimacy in understanding the emergence and development of “cross‐sector collaboration” between social enterprises and corporations.

An in‐depth case study of a long‐standing but fragile partnership between a UK‐based Fair Trade social enterprise and a large corporate retailer provides exploratory findings on the role of legitimacy at different stages of the collaboration process.

The findings highlight how pragmatic and moral legitimacy are mobilised by the social enterprise to justify collaboration throughout three major stages: the very decision of cross‐sector collaboration; the choice of the partner and the framing of the partnership; and the evolution of the collaboration.

While Fair Trade is not the only sector in which social enterprise‐corporate partnerships take place, it has been a pioneering domain revealing the potential as well as the challenges of such partnerships. Taking into account the role of legitimacy throughout the collaborative process is crucial both for comprehensive research and for informed practice.

Although it is documented by a single case study, this paper opens new research avenues to examine social enterprise‐corporate collaborations by developing a “non‐functionalist” view of such collaborations and showing the importance of legitimacy in understanding why and how they emerge, develop and sometimes fail.

The aim of this systematic literature review (SLR) is to map out the current state of the research on collaboration in the context of social entrepreneurship organisations (SEOs), synthesise this line of research and advance a research agenda.

A SLR of 40 scientific articles found in the Scopus and Web of Science databases built the foundation for an analysis of the state-of-the-art of the research addressing the interplay of SEOs and collaboration. This area of research has been very recent since the selected articles have been published since 2005 and more than half of which have appeared since 2017.

The findings suggest that collaboration is increasingly perceived as a crucial entrepreneurial activity and process for SEOs. The results indicate that collaboration is a vibrant and rapidly growing line of research which spans different fields of study, contexts, varied theoretical perspectives and multiple units of analysis. Furthermore, a total of five key research themes are identified pertaining to collaboration in the context of SEOs, such as motivations and strategies of collaboration, its antecedents, the interplay of institutional logics and tensions arising in collaboration, the impact of collaboration on the mission of SEOs and collaborative processes and practices.

To lend structure to this fragmented field of inquiry, this study systematically reviews and synthesises research on collaboration in the context of SEOs. In doing so, the study reveals that this line of research is under-researched, offering a significant scope for further scrutiny.

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.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and understand the obstacles hindering social entrepreneurship as a business model. Methodology/Approach: We performed an exploratory analysis structured in three stages. First, we used the Delphi method to identify the main difficulties with the collaboration of 20 social entrepreneurship experts. We then analyzed how these experts and a group of 21 social entrepreneurs rated the importance of the difficulties that had been identified. Finally, we performed a comparative analysis of both groups' ratings and found significant differences between their perceptions. Findings: Experts and social entrepreneurs agree on identifying financial difficulties as the main obstacles. They all highlight the lack of financial resources and difficulties in the sustainability and independence of the venture in the long term. However, while the experts recognize that human resources' lack of skills is another important obstacle, the social entrepreneurs give more importance to external factors, such as resistance to social change or lack of knowledge and understanding of the social entrepreneurship concept. Practical Implications: The decision to seek the collaboration of two different groups is enriching, as the results show that their perceptions of the barriers facing social entrepreneurship do not always coincide. Originality/Value of Chapter: It is a chapter focused exclusively on deepening the knowledge of the obstacles to social entrepreneurship, which tries not only to identify them but also to offer the vision of experts in social entrepreneurship as well as of social entrepreneurs themselves.

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.

This study aims to develop an in-depth understanding of how supplier selection helps social enterprises achieve their social missions while maintaining commercial viability.

The paper applies a multiple-case design to study the supplier selection processes of 15 Dutch social enterprises.

Social enterprises tend to build supply relationships through existing networks and evaluate suppliers based on value alignment, relationship commitment, resource complementarity, and cost. Depending on the possibility of social value creation in supplier selection, the importance of these criteria varies across different social enterprise models and between key and non-key suppliers. Moreover, suppliers’ long-term relationship commitment can help reconcile tensions between the social and commercial logic of a social enterprise and facilitate impact creation.

Data collection is limited to the perspectives of buyers – the social enterprises. Future research could collect supplier-side data to explore how they engage with social enterprises during the selection process.

Managers of social enterprises can use our research findings as guidance for selecting the most suitable suppliers, while organizations that want to collaborate with social enterprises should actively build network ties to be identified.

We contribute to the cross-sector collaboration literature by showing the underlying reasons for the preference for network reinforcing and indirect networking in supplier identification. We contribute to the social impact supply chain literature by revealing the critical role of supplier selection in shaping collaboration outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore bricolage as the missing link in understanding how cross-sector social partnerships form and operate in response to grand challenges. It is proposed that the weaving together of resources employed by members of cross-sector social partnerships (CSSPs) is bricolage in action and can be linked to Gray's (1985) facilitating conditions for collaboration. While existing research examines bricolage primarily at the individual level, this research studies collective bricolage, as implemented by a cross-sector social partnership in its process to address a grand challenge.

The authors follow the evolution of a Midwestern initiative aimed at the grand challenge of generational poverty. The deductive case study approach identifies the mechanisms of bricolage being employed in the initiative's evolution and ties these to Gray's (1985) seminal paper on interorganizational collaboration.

This case study has implications for academics conceptually struggling to understand grand challenges and the role of entrepreneurial initiatives in the public and nonprofit sectors, as well as practitioners currently involved in collaborative efforts to address said challenges.

This study enriches the discussion and enhances the link between the CSSP literature and new notions of social entrepreneurship that embrace the collective as their unit of analysis. This is the first work of its kind to link bricolage to a nascent CSSP and demonstrate how the entrepreneurial concept of bricolage is an inherent part of CSSP formation and operation.

This paper aims to provide a starting point to discuss how social enterprises can drive systemic change in terms of social impact through operations and supply chain management.

This paper reviews existing literature and the four papers in this special issue and develops a conceptual framework of how social enterprises and their supply chains create social impact and further enable systematic change.

Our paper finds that social impact and systemic change can be shaped by social enterprises at three different levels of analysis (organization, supply chain and context) and through three enablers (cognitive shift, stakeholder collaboration and scalability). Such dimensions are used to position current literature and to highlight new research directions.

This paper proposes a novel understanding of operations and supply chain management in social enterprises intended as catalysts for systemic change. Based on this premise we distinguish different practices and stakeholders to be considered when studying social impact at different levels. The conceptual framework introduced in the paper provides a new pathway for future research and debate by scholars engaged at the intersection of social impact, sustainable operations and supply chain management.

This study aims to examine the extent of collaboration and networking between local festival stakeholders by focusing on the differences in how they evaluate themselves and other stakeholders.

A questionnaire directed toward different stakeholder groups involving 1,092 respondents was administered at six selected festivals in Ghana, West Africa.

In terms of self-evaluated collaboration and networking, the festival organizers considered themselves to have the highest risk, followed by the sponsors and vendors. However, when the stakeholders assessed each other, most agreed that they experienced higher risk when dealing with vendors. To reduce the risks of dealing with vendors, it is recommended that vendors be registered, accredited and allocated selling spaces before festivals begin.

It is helpful to understand the nature of decision power or different views of collaboration and networking among stakeholders. Further, this study offers insights to understand stakeholders’ motivations to participate in local festivals.

The combination of collaboration and networking between local festival stakeholders into a conceptual model allows the current findings to offer meaningful theoretical and practical implications.