Practical problem and research focus
The social mission is considered a central feature of social enterprises (SE) (Defourny&Nyssens 2010:44). The mission of a SE is both a factor that influences the direction of the organizational development and, in turn, a subject to the influencing factors that emerge in the course of that development. Thus, the effectiveness and the persistence of an organization’s mission is a crucial issue in the management of SEs. This practical problem has been discussed in terms of avoiding mission drifts (Jones 2007; Cornforth 2014; Ebrahim et al. 2014). Considering the multiple sources of mission drifts this paper deals with the preconditions for a SE to enforce its mission in practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence a SE’s capability of focusing on its mission effectively and permanently. In order to deal with the variety of SEs’ missions (comparability within diversity) the empirical focus is on a group of SEs (based in Germany) with missions dedicated to sustainable development.
Analytical framework
The influencing factors are examined (1) internally in the organizational governance, (2) externally in the institutional environments, and (3) with regard to the linkage of both in the business models. The organizational governance comprises formal features – the organizational design (Parrish 2010) and the governance structures – as well as informal factors such as leadership, values, virtues and visions of entrepreneurs and stakeholders. The institutional environments are relevant to the issue of mission enforcement inasmuch as they hold manifold restrictions, risks, support and opportunities. The institutional environments include market conditions, regulatory frameworks, spatial contexts, and sociocultural qualities (Welter 2011). Business models, understood as the architecture of an organization’s value creation around specific value propositions (Osterwalder&Pigneur 2010), bring together internal and external preconditions for the enforcement of the organization’s mission as normative basis of the value propositions. In particular, the novel concept of sustainable business models (Stubbs&Cocklin 2008; Schaltegger et al. 2016) offers an approach to examine the factors that can lead an organization to achieve sustainability goals.
Methodology
With sustainability-orientation as common feature the SEs we surveyed in this study differ in terms of their field of activity, products/services offered, and scope/radicalness of their innovative/transformative efforts. The empirical sample comprises 14 SEs in three domains: eco-fair clothing, energy cooperatives, climate protection. The research approach is exploratory due to the lack of studies that estimate the factors enforcing the mission. The approach is comparative as we can learn from the comparison of different areas of activity as well as different types of SE models in each area. In this respect the results are intended as contribution to the ICSEM project which the data collection was part of. Within the interviews using the ICSEM questionnaire the SE-leaders were asked further qualitative questions regarding mission (drift) and areas of influence. Furthermore, publicly accessible documents (websites...) were part of the empirical data we analyzed using a qualitative content analysis.
Conclusion and relevance
The analysis of the empirical results reveals several influencing factors: With regard to organizational governance transparency, personal values and leadership appear to have a general significance, while the importance of structural aspects such as board composition differ in the three samples. As to the institutional environment each sample reveals specific preconditions for mission enforcement depending on political regulation and market conditions in the respective area. Despite institutional restrictions, the exploration of the business models has demonstrated that even within these small samples a remarkable diversity of possible actions for social entrepreneurship exists.
References:
Cornforth, C. (2014): Understanding and combating mission drift in social enterprises. Social Enterprise Journal 10, 3–20.
Defourny, J.; Nyssens, M. (2010): Conceptions of Social Enterprise and Social Entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States: Convergences and Divergences. In: Journal of Social Entrepreneurship 1(1), 32–53.
Ebrahim, A.; Battilana, J.; Mair, J. (2014): The governance of social enterprises - Mission drift and accountability challenges in hybrid organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior 34, 81–100.
Jones, M. B. (2007): The Multiple Sources of Mission Drift. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 36(2), 299–307.
Osterwalder, A.; Pigneur, Y. (2010): Business model generation: A handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. Hoboken NJ. Wiley.
Parrish, Bradley D. (2010): Sustainability-driven entrepreneurship: Principles of organization design. In: Journal of Business Venturing 25(5), 510–523.
Schaltegger, S.; Hansen, E. G.; Lu deke-Freund, F. (2016): Business Models for Sustainability: Origins, Present Research, and Future Avenues. Organization & Environment 29, 3–10.
Stubbs, W.; Cocklin, C. (2008): Conceptualizing a Sustainability Business Model. Organization & Environment 21, 103–127.
Welter, Friederike (2011): Contextualizing Entrepreneurship – Conceptual Challenges and Ways Forward. In: Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice 35(1), 165–184.
8. Social enterprises, sustainable transition and common goods
