Brett R. Smith

Different Types of Social Entrepreneurship: The Role of Geography and Embeddedness on the Measurement and Scaling of Social Value

With its continued emergence in both academic and practitioner communities, the diversity of organizations categorized as social entrepreneurship continues to expand. The increasing diversity represents a challenge to the field as it attempts to build a scientific base of knowledge. To address this issue, we build upon a typology of different forms of social entrepreneurship to theorize about how the role of ‘sites and spaces’ may affect the social entrepreneurial process. Specifically, we explain how variance in the geographic focus of different types of social entrepreneurship influences the types of social networks in which social entrepreneurship is embedded. Drawing upon this logic of embeddedness, we develop propositions about how the structural embeddedness of social entrepreneurship may affect the measurement and scaling of social value. The purpose of this article is to add to the relatively sparse but growing theoretical foundation of the field of social entrepreneurship.

Differences in Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Role of Tacitness and Codification in Opportunity Identification

The role of opportunities in the entrepreneurial process remains relatively underdeveloped. To address this issue, we develop a definition of an entrepreneurial opportunity and draw upon a distinction from the domain of knowledge management to suggest a continuum of entrepreneurial opportunities ranging from codified to tacit. Though both traditional and contemporary research has examined how individual differences relate to the identification of opportunities, we focus instead on the importance of differences in the opportunities themselves. Specifically, we examine how relative differences in the degree of opportunity tacitness relate to the process of opportunity identification. We find that relatively more codified opportunities are more likely to be discovered through systematic search, whereas more tacit opportunities are more likely to be identified due to prior experience. These findings contribute to an increased understanding of the role of the opportunity in entrepreneurship research and have important implications for economic theories of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial networks, and entrepreneurial education.

Identifying the Drivers of Social Entrepreneurial Impact: Theoretical Development and an Exploratory Empirical Test of Scalers

Abstract The scaling of social entrepreneurial impact is an important issue in the field of social entrepreneurship. While researchers have focused relatively little theoretical and empirical attention on scaling, a recently proposed set of drivers of scaling – incorporated into what has been labeled the SCALERS model – may provide guidance for new theoretical and empirical work on scaling of social impact. In this study, prior work on the drivers of scaling is extended by adding to the theoretical foundations upon which the SCALERS model is developed and by providing an initial empirical test of the SCALERS model. Initial empirical support is found for the SCALERS model of scaling social entrepreneurial impact.

Social Enterprises and the Timing of Conception: Organizational Identity Tension, Management, and Marketing

Nonprofit organizations that engage in social enterprises can have difficulty reconciling the social service and business identities of their organization. In this exploratory qualitative interview study, we examine how social enterprises affect this organizational identity tension and how executive directors of nonprofits manage these multiple identities. Findings suggest that identity tension varied dependent upon the timing of conception of the social enterprise. Nonprofit leaders used different approaches to identity management and identity marketing for social enterprises: after conception and social enterprises: at conception. Initial guidance is provided about how nonprofits engaged in social enterprises can manage identity tension issues.

Social Entrepreneurship: A Grounded Learning Approach to Social Value Creation

The value of the inclusion of social entrepreneurship in entrepreneurship education courses and programs is considered in light of the increase in social entrepreneurial ventures worldwide as well as changing business school requirements. Using a grounded learning theory approach as a foundation, we consider factors unique to social entrepreneurship and present a live case social venture which provides hands-on experience to students. Student comments regarding their learning through this experience are also included. Future directions for social entrepreneurship education pedagogy and research are discussed.

Funding Implications of Social Enterprise: The Role of Mission Consistency, Entrepreneurial Competence, and Attitude Toward Social Enterprise on Donor Behavior

Social entrepreneurship covers a broad domain, including social enterprise, defined as the use of for-profit strategies by nonprofit organizations. Driven by multiple factors, nonprofit organizations have increasingly turned to social enterprise in the hopes of funding their social missions. However, only limited research has fully delineated how the use of social enterprises affects overall funding and the conditions under which social enterprises are relatively more effective. This mixed-method, three-study project provides evidence that the introduction of a social enterprise negatively affects individual donations but that some of the negative effects can be mitigated when the social enterprise is perceived as mission consistent and competent. In addition, the results show that donor attitudes toward social enterprises moderate the effects. The results of these studies have important implications for marketing, social entrepreneurship, and public policy.

Clarifying the Relational Ties of Organizational Belonging Understanding the Roles of Perceived Insider Status, Psychological Ownership, and Organizational Identification

In order to clarify the roles of relational ties within the perceived organizational membership theoretical framework, we test the discriminant validity and concurrent predictive validity of perceived insider status, psychological ownership, and organizational identification. Hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical multiple regression for a sample of 347 workers across two industry segments. Results indicate that the constructs of interest each explain unique variance. Perceived insider status and psychological ownership were significant predictors of job satisfaction and turnover intentions, whereas organizational identification was only found to predict job satisfaction. Post hoc analyses indicate that relationship between organizational identification and turnover intentions is fully mediated by perceived insiders status and psychological ownership.

Identifying the Drivers of Social Entrepreneurial Impact: An Exploratory Empirical Study

Many social entrepreneurs and their supporters and funders have now turned their focus on the goal of scaling the social impact of their programs and initiatives (Bloom and Dees, 2008; Bradach, 2003; Dees et al., 2004). In an era when resources for social programs are scarce, the idea of scaling up well-performing efforts so that social problems are mitigated more efficiently, effectively, and widely has become compelling. Investors and grantors want to obtain a good social return on their investment, and managers of social entrepreneurial organizations want to please their funders while also making a big difference in the world. Great interest has developed in finding the drivers of successful scaling of social impact that will allow innovative, smaller-scale social programs to move rapidly and efficiently from helping just a few people to helping more people more dramatically.

Should We Stay or Should We Go? ‘Organizational’ Relational Identity and Identification in Social Venture Strategic Alliances

ABSTRACT In tackling some of societys most intractable problems, social ventures often engage in strategic alliances to overcome resource constraints and scale their solutions. While considerable research has focused on why strategic alliances are created, less attention has been focused on how they form and why they may (not) persist. Building on an identity-based perspective, this paper develops a theoretical model of strategic alliance development and change by explaining how, and with what results, leaders of social ventures influence the development of organizational identities within their own organizations and strategic alliance partner organizations. The model presented in this paper contributes to the identity literature by developing a cross-level model that explains how individual identities can facilitate the development of organizational identities and by extending the individual-level construct of relational identity to the organizational level by introducing the constructs of ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification. The model contributes to the social entrepreneurship and strategy literatures by suggesting that identity explanations may inform how strategic alliances are formed and why they may (not) persist.

Is It the Job or the Support? Examining Structural and Relational Predictors of Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention for Nonprofit Employees

We examine the relative efficacy of two theoretically distinct variables for predicting job satisfaction and turnover intentions for workers in nonprofit organizations. The first, perceived job characteristics, reflects the structure of jobs in terms of autonomy, skill variety, task identity, task significance, and feedback. The second, perceived organizational support, reflects the quality of the employee–organization relationship. We collected data from 196 full-time, nonprofit employees across two time periods, and we tested hypotheses using hierarchical regression and relative importance analysis. Results emphasize the significance of managing employees in a supportive manner and structuring jobs so that employees can work autonomously.