This study endorses the use of data envelopment analysis, which uses benefit-of-the-doubt weighting to evaluate the social, economic and overall performance of social enterprises. This methodology is especially useful for creating composite indicators based on multiple outputs expressed in different measurement units, and allows for enterprise-specific weighting of the different objectives. Applying this methodology on a unique longitudinal dataset of Flemish sheltered workshops suggest that social enterprises may face different types of mission drift. Further, our resultsshow that top-performing social enterprises are more economically and socially efficient than low performers. These top performers also have a stronger economic orientation, which sheds new light on the balance between social and economic orientations in social enterprises.
The centrality of user‐members in cooperatives and cooperatives' embeddedness in their community and in a global network influence positively their resilience in times of crisis, as illustrated by cases of cooperatives that acted entrepreneurially during the COVID‐19 crisis. Cooperatives are hybrid organizations that maximize value, instead of profit. They are owned, governed, and controlled by their members. They are more resilient than the conventional enterprises in times of crisis, thanks to their peculiar governance characteristics that ensure member centrality. Next to member centrality, the embeddedness of cooperatives in their local environment and a global movement enhances mission centrality as well as trust and solidarity among their members, local communities, and other cooperatives.
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