A stakeholder perspective on managing tensions in hybrid organizations: Analyzing fair trade for a sustainable development

Abstract

This paper presents a stakeholder perspective to study tensions in hybrid organizations (HOs). In this study, we investigate social enterprises (SEs) as emblematic cases of HO. The paper responds to literature that calls for studies about the interactions with stakeholders and proposes the relational paths SEs can implement to alleviate the emerging tensions between environmental–social and business goals. It also contributes to the academic debate offering empirical evidence on HO‐related tensions. Solving these tensions is beneficial for HOs and in terms of sustainable development. The paper presents a longitudinal case study of a leading SE in the fair trade industry. Fair trade represents an industry where economic, social, and environmental goals may be jointly achieved through the action of SEs. The main paper's contributions regard a stakeholders‐generated view of tensions and the identification of stakeholders‐tailored solutions to managing them. In addition, the proposed ad hoc approach contributes to a deeper understanding of how an SE deals with its hybrid nature.

Social venture performance, impact and strategic marketing effectiveness in turbulent environments

“…For instance, a survey of Australian SVs found that customer orientation is positively associated with performance in environmental, social, and economic domains (Pinheiro et al, 2021;Yu et al, 2022). Another survey of British SVs found that customer orientation improves the financial and social performance of SVs (Gigliotti and Runfola, 2022). Other studies related to SV performance reported the positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation-a form of organizational capability-on the SVs' financial but not social performance (Lee and Chandra, 2020;Yu et al, 2022) and the positive influence of business planning on the performance (financial and social) among SVs (Cheah et al, 2019).…”

“…The SV literature documented a positive association between marketing efforts and performance (social and financial) of SVs (e.g. Beisland et al, 2021;Gigliotti and Runfola, 2022). However, these studies have yet to examine the influence of another key mechanism that influence performance which is market turbulence.…”

“…But unlike for-profit ventures, SV does not aim to optimize profit for its shareholders but to create value to stakeholders. In fact, SV has been defined as a hybrid organization (Battilana and Lee, 2014; Gigliotti and Runfola, 2022), a form of organization that combines commercial, social welfare and public value logics (Chandra and Paras, 2021; Stephan et al ., 2015) and whose activities emphasize redistribution and reciprocity (André and Pache, 2016; Pache and Santos, 2013; Sinthupundaja et al. , 2019).…”

“…Although marketing capabilities and the broader organizational capabilities are important to SVs sustainability, research in this domain remains limited in the SV literature. Existing research on SV performance (Beisland et al, 2021;Gigliotti and Runfola, 2022;Pinheiro et al, 2021) has yet to examine the mechanism of how marketing capabilities translate into performance (i.e. as moderators or mediators) such as market turbulence or situating them in countries with relatively less experience with SV.…”

Stakeholder theory and actor‐network theory: The stakeholder engagement in energy transitions

“…There is a difficulty in categorizing and understanding everything that is not related to the industry itself or to government or governmental institutions (Avelino & Wittmayer, 2016). Different actors play roles in this transition scenario, and there are imbalances of power (De Sousa Jabbour et al, 2020; Frantzeskaki & Rok, 2018; Gigliotti & Runfola, 2022).…”