Integrating social enterprise and social marketing with shadow framework

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to argue for an integrative model of social enterprises (SE) and social marketing (SM) to usher in desirable change, instead of the currently adopted either/or approach. We offer the shadow framework to integrate these two paradigms in the context of peace-building organizations. Design/methodology/approach Using purposive sampling strategy, 19 cases of peacebuilding initiatives were identified and reviewed from secondary sources. Ashoka Fellows working in the domain of peacebuilding, along with a few other exemplary cases across the globe were considered. Findings We found an emerging typology of three forms in the organizational responses to peacebuilding initiatives: (a) pure charity-driven work, (b) dual structure of charity plus business enterprises, and (c) social enterprises with distinct revenue model. Research limitations/implications Building upon previous theoretical research, we find a lot of merit in SEs adopting the SM toolkit. We contribute to theory building by showing the interaction between paradox theory and stakeholder marketing in the context of SEs dealing with wicked problems such as peacebuilding. Consequently, we propose a shadow social marketing (SSM) model that would camouflage the real offering of peace through an apparent offering that would be non-controversial in nature and result in moderate-importance small wins for the multiple stakeholders involved with conflicting interests. Practical implications From a managerial perspective, chances of success of the desired social change increases by complementing the efforts of SEs through the SM toolkit. Organizationally, although all the three forms of peacebuilding initiatives can benefit from systematic usage of the SSM, they need to reframe their efforts toward those that are not pro-peace, rather than preach to the converted. Consequently, the answer may lie in efforts at building cultural sensitivity to promote entrepreneurship amongst such target groups amongst such target groups in conflicting communities, with an organizational form that successfully marries SEs and SM. Originality/value Though previous scholarship mentions the need for finding complementarities between social marketing objectives and social enterprise missions, no paper yet has suggested a roadmap for achieving it. This paper highlights an integrative plan that, in this specific case of peacebuilding initiatives, or social enterprises in general, can leverage to evolve better organizational practices, improve financial sustainability and measurable impact to effect the desired social change.

Alleviating Help-Seeking Stigma Among Depressed College Students Through Shadow Social Marketing: A Meso-Level Intervention to a Wicked Problem

“…The services offered by the intervention are carefully designed not to explicitly mention any mental health problems to the users. Following SSM (Roy & Goswami, 2020), the strategy here is to "shadow" an intervention's blatant explicitness that might trigger stigmatized feelings in affected individuals. This normalizes the necessity of taking care of mental health as a natural outcome of the competitive and stressful environment.…”

“…Prior studies have emphasized the inadequacy of micro-level social marketing interventions targeting individuals where the root cause of issues lies at the macro level (Kennedy, 2016). To address this problem, we adopt, in this work, a shadow social marketing (SSM) approach (Roy & Goswami, 2020) to design and develop a meso-level, midstream intervention platform called Cocoon to alleviate the deleterious effects of the perception of societal stigma that deter help-seeking among mentally depressed undergraduate (UG) students in an educational institution. SSM essentially involves camouflaging the real offering – mental health services – with a shadow offering.…”

Can social marketing be the key to social change in India?

“…Literature in social marketing in the Indian context is largely focused on examining the role of social marketing in dealing with topical social issues such as, pro-environmental behaviour (SIA report, 2019), family planning (Chandy et al ., 1965; Lipovsek et al ., 2010), tobacco consumption (Murukutla et al ., 2012), peacebuilding (Roy and Goswami, 2020) and diabetes (Thackeray and Neiger, 2003). There is another stream of research that focuses on strategic social marketing campaigns in India (Joshi, 2018; Purohit, 2021).…”

Strategic marketing approaches impact on social enterprises

“…Marketing is a promising area for improving the effectiveness of social enterprise (SE) management (Pinheiro et al , 2021; Bandyopadhyay and Ray, 2019a; Satar et al , 2016). Some of these studies focus on entrepreneurial marketing (Ghods, 2019), responsible marketing (Bandyopadhyay and Ray, 2019b), social marketing (Roy and Goswami, 2020), macromarketing (Kravets et al , 2020) and consumer perceptions and behavior (Islam et al , 2021; Tsai et al , 2020). Despite the variety of topics explored, there is still room for another subfield of research: strategic marketing in SEs (Ellis and Derera, 2019a, b).…”