Details
Year: 2018
Published in: Journal of Business Venturing
Cited as: McMullen, Jeffery S., 2018. “Organizational hybrids as biological hybrids: Insights for research on the relationship between social enterprise and the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 575-590.
Abstract
Using the study of hybridization in evolutionary biology as metaphorical inspiration, I offer a thought experiment about the emergence and proliferation of social enterprise and the influence of hybrid organizing on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. After establishing a number of analogues between biological and organizational hybrids, I analyze the degree to which social enterprise may be indicative of hybrid speciation – i.e., a new organizational form – versus introgressive hybridization – i.e., a variant of a more traditional organizational form. I then use the metaphor to examine whether social enterprise: (1) possesses distinct rules and features, (2) is shaped by or shaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem, (3) still remains a hybrid organization, and (4) might even be considered an invasive species.
Paywall
Visit the journal website to see access options for this document.

Recommendations from this resource
Future Research
Future research may benefit by going beyond asking how social entrepreneurs combine rules and features of traditional organizational forms to create a social enterprise and instead ask whether the degree or proportion of rules and features imported from each organizational source of inspiration if blended differently, might result in substantially different outcomes.