Social Enterprise Recommendations Overview

Policymakers could actively stimulate a motivation-shaping effect on start-up entrepreneurs through Higher Education programmes.

1. To analyse policy-relevant country variables that influence the association between environmental value creation and innovation.

2. Explore how the effect of environmental regulations on innovation may play out differently for other types of firms such as family firms or nonprofit firms. For example, there is some evidence that the regulatory environment has a different effect on family firms compared to non-family firms as the former are willing to sacrifice economic value to preserve non-economic socio-emotional value such as image and reputation.

1. This framework aimed to be applicable to different types of collaboration involving hybrid organizations. Here, they focused on the partnerships between social enterprises and government (public sector). Future work might use our framework and refine it based on this new context, in which dominant-logic organizations (in this case public sector agencies) evolve toward collaboration modes that hinge on plural logics — typically, reaching social welfare objectives through a mix of state-based and market-oriented modes of action.

2. It would be particularly interesting to examine the implications of this trend for the hybridity of social enterprises and other “third sector” organizations. For example, do social enterprises working with the public sector through these new “transactional” schemes experience an enhancement of their hybridity or, on the contrary, as our current framework and other authors would suggest, are they led to embrace an alternative logic (market or state) at the expense of their own social logic.

3. This study focused exclusively on bilateral collaborations involving one hybrid and one dominant-logic organization. Other multilateral collaborative dynamics do exist, involving one or several hybrid organizations together with one or several other actors like businesses, NGOs, governments and community organizations. For example examining how the configuration of logics and attendant tensions may vary according to types of actors involved.

4. Analysis took into account only two logics which, in an interorganizational relationship with a partner pursuing one dominant logic. Nevertheless, we are well aware that hybrid organizations may combine more than two logics; for example, cooperatives engaged in community-based renewable energy or nonprofit organizations may combine social, market, and state logics. Future research should pay more attention to interorganizational collaboration in the context of plural (not just dual) logics.

5. Finally, the impact of interorganizational collaboration is likely to depend on its relevance for the activities of the hybrid organization. The more marginal the collaboration, the weaker its impact on the activities of the hybrid organization, and thus the weaker its influence on logic configuration and inter-logic tensions. Therefore, future research could explore to what extent the relationships proposed here vary according to the significance of the collaboration for the activities of the hybrid organization.

6. Another interesting research avenue would be to examine the interdependence between different collaborations with different partners (whether dominant-logic or not) in the context of “collaboration portfolios” (Gutiérrez et al. 2016) and their joint influence on inter-logic configuration and tensions.

7. Finally, comparative empirical studies could help define how collaboration interacts with other factors in shaping logic configuration and tensions within hybrid organizations.

1. Further research should investigate on the impact of cultural dimensions on both the building blocks of SE, as well as on their relative balance.

New questions may include:
– How do different cultural values affect entrepreneurial and social orientation?
– How does culture affect the relative balance between self- and collective oriented interests in SE?
– How does the interactive effect among the cultural values act as trigger/moderator of SE?
– What combination of values is needed to sustain the growth and pace of SE?

2. In particular, institutional theory, a resource-based view, resource dependence theory, and theories of prosocial behaviour may be used to integrate cultural approaches in the study of SE.

1. More research on comparative analysis between different type of organizations like ‘hybrid organisations’ and ‘non-profit organisations’.

2. More discussion is needed on negative aspects of abuse of bricolage in social entrepreneurship. ‘Crowdfunding’ is also considered a new approach to social enterprise development.

3. There are research gaps in understanding how social enterprise business models are structured, operated and developed over time.

4. Regarding the performance of social entrepreneurship, measuring social performance,
value creation, social value creation, social change and social impact can be a potential
future research path using a variety of qualitative and quantitative tools. Research should focus on the impact of a combination of these factors on intention.

5. The ‘intention’ mechanism to ‘behavior’ is still a challenge in this theme. The longitudinal design can be used to examine the process from intention to decision.

6. Sustainable entrepreneurship’ and ‘sustainable development’ received plenty of research attention in social entrepreneurship. The similarities, differences and the relationship between sustainable entrepreneurship, sustainable development and social entrepreneurship also need to be clarified in the following studies.

7. There is plenty scope to study the development of social entrepreneurship and its contribution to social development in the context of ‘developing countries’ or emerging countries. More studies should be focussed on Asian and African countries, where the social entrepreneurship level is still low such as ‘India’, ‘China’, ‘South Africa’, ‘Malaysia’.

1. Policymakers should survey the environment for the presence of other social enterprises, philanthropists, government agencies, NGOs and organisations with corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives for signals, as to whether social problems addressable via entrepreneurial means are addressed by pre-existing initiatives.

2. Where feasible, pragmatic initiatives, such as media campaigns and training programmes can be enacted to shift societal attitudes about the need and value of different forms of social enterprises.

3. Finally, although this study focussed on social enterprises, it is important to note the symbiotic relationship between the revenue generating strategy of social enterprises and the for-profit motives of commercial enterprises. This multiplier effect may be more evident in developing economies, whereby both social and commercial firms take different forms and play different but complementary roles work synergistically to achieve economic growth. Hence, there is a policy argument that a synergistic balance of social and commercial entrepreneurship should be encouraged in a country.

Where feasible, pragmatic initiatives, such as media campaigns and training programmes can be enacted to shift societal attitudes about the need and value of different forms of social enterprises.

Limitations: in his study, sample over-represents middle and high-income countries, compared to low-income countries, and it also only included the measurement year for social entrepreneurship activity. There is also an under-representation of environmental social entrepreneurship, and international social enterprises created outside of one’s home country.

1. Future analysis should be repeated on a larger sample of countries with more years of data. Also, investigations should be extended into the impact of other institutional forces and country differences on different types of social entrepreneurship.

2. Finally, findings should be re-examined from the lens of the formation of intentions to become an entrepreneur; examining, for example, the effects of the stigma of business failure on the social entrepreneurship activity of experienced entrepreneurs; and whether the rates of failed entrepreneurs in an environment influences cultural practices or stakeholder expectations.

3. Future researchers should explore other cultural variables and interact them with individual level attributes to determine decisions and behaviours of social entrepreneurs.

4. And if stigma has a positive influence on entrepreneurial risk-taking. Similarly, general human capital variables, like education, that are associated with the pursuit of entrepreneurship should also be examined.