Full Citation
Title: To B or Not to B? Understanding the Emergence of Social Entreneurship in the Financialized Economy
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2014
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: This stu dy aims at understanding the recent proliferation of social enterprises, a class of organizations explicitly committed to advancing non - financial stakeholders interests, against the historical backdrop of economic financialization, which institutionalized shareholder value maximization as the sole legitimate purpose of firms. These increasing claims of an organizational identity that is deviant from the dominant institutional logic pose an intriguing puzzle to organization theories. This study addresses th is puzzle by examining why (mechanism) and when (facilitating context) organizations adopt an institutionally - deviant identity. Informed by an inductive qualitative analysis, this study first identifies two routes to a deviant identity: first, consistent w ith the current organizational identity literature, organizations strategically adopt a deviant identity to appeal to the stakeholders who are disembedded from the dominant logic; and second, reminiscent of identity movements, organizations also politica lly claim a deviant identity to disassociate themselves from and transform the existing institutional framework. These arguments were then tested in the context of the Certified B Corporations, a growing form of social enterprises. The quantitative analysi s supports both predictions by finding that claims of the B Corporation identity was facilitated both by the stakeholder discontent with the shareholder - centered approach and by the salient negative consequences of the economic financialization.
Url: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/107406/1239_SKim.pdf?sequence=1
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Kim, Suntae
Series Title:
Publication Number: 1239
Institution: University of Michigan
Pages:
Publisher Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Other
Countries: