Work insertion social enterprises (WISEs) are created with the purpose of integrating people generally excluded from the labour market (e.g. Nyssens et al., 2012). While different research projects have investigated the contexts in which WISEs emerge and evolve, proposed typologies and looked at WISE's impacts (e.g. the EMES PERSE Project and Nyssens et al., 2012; Cooney, 2011; Kerlin, 2010). Their management challenges have attracted little attention, and apart from a notable exceptions (e.g. Battilana et al., 2015, Cooney, 2006; Meyer, 2009; Pache and Santos, 2013), WISEs have rarely been studied from management scholars. WISEs appear as particularly stimulating sites to explore the management of social-economic tensions, especially in the light of the burgeoning interest for organizational paradoxes (e.g. Smith and Lewis, 2011; Schad et al., 2016).
This research builds on a recent proposition, by Alegre (2015), that the social-economic tensions and paradoxes, in social enterprises, will be exacerbated where the social value is created, along the value chain process. Indeed, many social enterprises focus on one element of the value chain. For instance, the social value is linked to sourcing activities in fairtrade enterprises, and it has been argued that the social-economic tension will be more salient for decisions related to that specific element of social value creation (Alegre, 2015; Dees and Anderson, 2003). But how can social enterprises succeed in managing these tensions when they add social everywhere in the value creation process?
To shed light on this puzzling challenge, we inductively studied the “extreme case”of WORK! (a pseudonym). WORK! is a pioneer non-profit WISE that has been working in Montréal (Québec), since its creation 30 years ago, with disadvantaged youth, building furniture and other woodcrafted goods for housing and daycare non-profits. WORK! approached us in the context of its organizational development reflections, looking for tools to facilitate decision-making with regards to the actualization of its strategic choices. This partner-oriented project gave us access to multiple stakeholders of the organization (many meetings with the general manager, 12 interviews, a focus group) and to archival data. A value-based management model was designed, integrating the normative values that guide decisions at WORK! with its value chain.
Through this model, we better understand the seemingly “counter-intuitive” strategic choices WORK! has made through its history, at least in light of mainstream strategic management literature. More specifically, in challenging and even adverse conditions, not only has WORK! always kept focussing on 1) helping the most disadvantaged youth (thus adding challenges to the HR and production activities), it did so while 2) restricting its market base (dealing with non-profit clients, and refusing to open up its commercial clientele to individuals or for-profit organizations) and 3) not investing in technologies that could have brought in new business and eased production.
What allows for the model to hold is its profound respect of two pillar values, "youth as raison d'être" and "produce for community". Disadvantaged youth is actually both the heart of the mission (WORK!’s raison d’être) and a core element of its workforce. Our research offers various contributions, for research and practice. To the literature on social enterprises, our research highlights the management particularities of WISEs. Further, the value-based management model allows for a better understanding of the practical role of normatives values into concrete business decision-making that feeds economic value creation.
References
Alegre, I. (2015). Social and economic tension in social enterprises: Does it exist? Social Business, 5(1), 17-32.
Battilana, J., Sengul, M., Pache, A. C., and Model, J. (2015). Harnessing productive tensions in hybrid organizations: The case of work integration social enterprises. Academy of Management Journal, 58(6), 1658-1685.
Cooney, K. (2006). The Institutional and Technical Structuring of Nonprofit Ventures: Case Study of a U.S. Hybrid Organization Caught in Between Two Fields. Voluntas, 17, 143-161.
Cooney, K. (2011). An Exploratory Study of Social Purpose Business Models in the United States, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40(1),185-196.
Dees, J.G., and Anderson, B.B. (2003). For-profit social ventures. In Kourilsky & Walstad (eds.), Social Entrepreneurship, chapter2, Senate Hall Academic Publishing.
Kerlin, J.A. (2010). A Comparative Analysis of the Global Emergence of Social Enterprise, Voluntas, Vo.l 21, 162-179.
Meyer, M. (2009). Innovations en GRH pour une double performance: le cas des entreprises d'insertion par l'économique. Innovations, (1), 87-102.
Nyssens, M., Gardin, L. and Laville, J.-L. (eds) (2012). Entreprise sociale et insertion. Une perspective internationale. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
Pache, A.-C., and Santos, F. (2013). Inside the Hybrid Organization: Selective Coupling as a Response to Competing Institutional Logics. Academy of Management Journal, 56(4), 972-1001.
Schad, J., Lewis, M. W., Raisch, S. and Smith, W. (2016). Paradox Research in Management Science: Looking Back to Move Forward, Academy of Management Annals, 10(1), 5-64.
Smith, W. K., and Lewis, M. (2011). Toward a Theory of Paradox: A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing, Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 382-403.
3. Governance, employment and human resource management
