This study aims to understand how tensions between potentially contradicting parts of the social enterprise relate to tensions of the self. It does so by empirically exploring the commercialization process of a French NPO. In many societies today, social entrepreneurs are increasingly steered towards innovation and self-sufficiency (Dey and Steyaert, 2014). This means that non-profit and voluntary organizations are gradually becoming immersed in a market ideology, and thus, dependant on an income from commercial activity (Eikenberry, 2009). The combined ideologies, identities, and logics inherent in social enterprises may cause conflicts and tensions which could result in a mission drift towards either the social or economic goal at the expense of the other (Battilana and Lee, 2014). Social enterprises are thus hybrids and, for a social entrepreneur, this hybridity may be experienced as contradictory, which can lead to tensions within both the organizational and the personal identity. As individual and organizational identity is closely intertwined (Humle and Frandsen, 2016), the transformation of the organizational structure may also result in conflicts within the founder’s self. When shifting the organizational form towards one that is associated with new ideologies and logics, it is thereby likely that the organization, and its members, have to relate to a new group of “the generalized other” (Mead, 1934). However, as yet we know little about the actual effects of the commercialization of non-profits (Maier, Meyer, and Steinbereithner, 2016).
This is an in-depth longitudinal study of a single case. A French NPO was followed during one year, from the point when commercial activities were introduced until the point when the founder left the organization. The empirical material constitutes observations and interviews from time spent in situ, and long-distance video interviews. Through a narrative approach, the embedding process is explored through the founder’s story work, that is, how stories of the self and others are narrated in a process of negotiating events.
Findings show how the entrepreneur has to relate to different ideological communities, which creates tensions of the self that requires the entrepreneur to engage in identity work. In order to fully embed the organization in the logic of the market, the entrepreneur eventually has to disembed his self from the organization. Leaving the organization becomes a symbol of both personal and organizational legitimacy; a chance to prove the true self and its intrinsic moral. This study reveals how a stronger degree of embeddedness in the ideology that pertains to a certain community may lead to a greater internalization of the perceived views of others. This creates a perceived incoherence between the self and the organization.
This study provides insight into how the combination of organizational forms that are associated with different ideologies and values may lead to tensions within the enterprise that challenges the ability to achieve both social and economic goals. Thus, this study may provide public policy with a more nuanced understanding of the social enterprise as the most appropriate organizational form to solve societal issues.
