Managing Social-Business Tensions: A Review and Research Agenda for Social Enterprise

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Serval ID
serval:BIB_78F032A4E53A
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Managing Social-Business Tensions: A Review and Research Agenda for Social Enterprise
Journal
Business Ethics Quarterly
Author(s)
Smith Wendy K., Gonin Michael, Besharov Marya L.
ISSN
1052-150X
Publication state
Published
Issued date
07/2013
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
23
Number
3
Pages
407-442
Language
english
Abstract
In a world filled with poverty, environmental degradation, and moral injustice, social enterprises offer a ray of hope. These organizations seek to achieve social missions through business ventures. Yet social missions and business ventures are associated with divergent goals, values, norms, and identities. Attending to them simultaneously creates tensions, competing demands, and ethical dilemmas. Effectively understanding social enterprises therefore depends on insight into the nature and management of these tensions. While existing research recognizes tensions between social missions and business ventures, we lack any systematic analysis. Our paper addresses this issue. We first categorize the types of tensions that arise between social missions and business ventures, emphasizing their prevalence and variety. We then explore how four different organizational theories offer insight into these tensions, and we develop an agenda for future research. We end by arguing that a focus on social-business tensions not only expands insight into social enterprises, but also provides an opportunity for research on social enterprises to inform traditional organizational theories. Taken together, our analysis of tensions in social enterprises integrates and seeks to energize research on this expanding phenomenon.
Keywords
social entrepreneurship, social enterprise, paradox theory, institutional theory, organizational identity, stakeholder theory
Open Access
Yes
Create date
03/07/2013 10:24
Last modification date
14/02/2022 7:55
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