Organizational social entrepreneurship: scale development and validation

Abstract

Purpose Social entrepreneurship has become a growing field of research interest. Yet, past research has been held back by the lack of a rigorous measurement instrument. Rather than defining social entrepreneurship as an organizational form that a venture does or does not have, this paper agrees with Dees and Anderson (2006) that the construct is better thought of as a set of practices, processes and behaviors that organizations can engage in to a higher or a lesser degree. In other words, the construct is a set of behaviors that any organization can engage in. The purpose of the paper is to develop scale items to measure the construct of organizational social entrepreneurship (OSE). Design/methodology/approach Drawing on previous literature, this paper first develops and then validates scales for measuring OSE as a third-order formative construct. As its second order, the scale includes three components that capture the heterogeneity of the OSE concept: social change intention, commercial activity and inclusive governance. Findings The OSE scale is developed and tested through a sample of 182 nascent social enterprises from 55 different countries in the world and then revalidated using a second sample of 263 mature social enterprises from 6 European countries. Results suggest that the scale items exhibit internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity. Research limitations/implications The scale presented here offers an important new venue for social entrepreneurship theorizing. First, it allows scholars to take a broad approach toward a diverse field and to study OSE behavior in any empirical field in which it may occur. Second, the scales also allow for more focused theorizing. Scholars are encouraged to delve into the antecedents of all three components presented here and to study the different performance effects they have in terms of likelihood to survive, growth rate or potential to achieve financial sustainability. Originality/value The paper develops a multidimensional construct for OSE. In particular, the authors propose scale items for three central components of social entrepreneurship, namely, social change intentions, commercial activities and inclusive governance. The scales thus measure the three formative dimensions identified by Dees and Anderson (2006) and Defourny and Nyssens (2010).

Social business as a development factor in the region with global overhead

“…The field of the collaborative economy is characterized by wide spectrum of suistainability oriented grassroots initiatives such as cooperatives, social businesses, associations and informal initiatives [21]. Social entrepreneurship should focus on innovation and investment, as well as social entrepreneurship is seen as a business that has lead to profit.…”

Modeling Collaborative Intentions and Behavior in Digital Environments: The Case of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

“…The course combines case studies with group work and video recordings of lectures. According to the course learning objectives, students are expected to form groups to co-create innovative ideas for launching a so called "social enterprise" (Kannampuzha & Hockerts, 2019). The final grade is determined by a business plan that can be produced in groups or individually.…”

The Role of CSR on Social Entrepreneurship: An International Analysis

“…Thus, in the first phase, the philanthropic stage, this link is based exclusively on donations, which are considered to be the most passive form of CSR. As the CSR impact on core business operations increases, the relationships generate social share value for the two parties, eventually reaching the organizational stage with the development of new business opportunities [176][177][178]. This transition involves moving towards a more strategic approach for selecting social issues to support over the long-term based on partnerships.…”