Organizations have an important role to play as agents of social change and developement, particularly in developing countries in which changes in social conditions are often prerequisites for growth. This paper suggests a framework for conceptualizing the social role of organizations. Four archetypes of organizational management policy orientations—“commercial,” “entrepreneurial,” “philanthropic,” and “missionary”—are derived based on two underlying dimensions of altruism and social change orientation. The determinants of these two dimensions, the conditions favouring the emergence of each archetype and its management and design aspects are discussed. Each archetype may be relevant to a society under particular environmental conditions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.