Unintended Negative Effects of the Legitimacy-Seeking Behavior of Social Enterprises on Employee Attitudes

Lee, Seung Yun; Shin, Dong-Hoon; Park, Seong Hoon; Kim, Shomi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01991

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 61 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Public promotions, for instance, have been found to have unintended negative consequences on legitimacy. In a case study conducted by Lee et al (2018) on a Work Integration Social Enterprise (WISE), the authors discovered that an aggressive communication strategy that involved publishing pictures of marginalized and vulnerable employees actually lowered the self-esteem of these employees. As a result, their organizational commitment diminished, ultimately undermining the legitimacy of the enterprise.…”

Section: Theme 1: Acquiring Tangible Resources-financial and Material...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring social enterprise legitimacy within ecosystems from an institutional approach: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Spanuth,

Urbano

2023

Int J Management Reviews

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The legitimation of social enterprises is contingent upon the institutional context and targeted stakeholders; however, this claim has not been explored systematically, considering existing legitimacy strategies. Understanding the reasons behind the pursuit of legitimacy and the strategies that can be employed in specific contexts is paramount for social enterprises to obtain legitimacy and enhance positive social impact. This paper undertakes a systematic literature review at the intersection of social enterprise legitimacy, institutional theory and entrepreneurial ecosystems. Drawing on articles in journals included in the Web of Science database, the review enhances understanding of social enterprise legitimacy research through institutional contextualization by answering the question: ‘Why and how do social enterprises aim to obtain legitimacy in different contexts and towards which ecosystem actors?’ Six main reasons why social enterprises pursue legitimacy are identified, namely: to acquire tangible (financial and material) and intangible (community support and trust) resources; to compete with commercial businesses and non‐governmental organizations; to comply with stakeholder demands; to overcome institutional challenges; to create social impact; and to bring about institutional change. Alongside these reasons for legitimacy pursuit, legitimacy strategies and the addressed actors and institutions are identified and synthesized into three categories: institutional context dependency; closeness to the audience; and multidimensionality and process perspective, identifying promising avenues for further research that are more context‐sensitive. The review provides guidance for social enterprises seeking to identify and adapt legitimacy strategies, enabling them to address the pressing issues of legitimacy deficits that continue to hamper the generation of social impact.

show abstract

Section: Theme 1: Acquiring Tangible Resources-financial and Material...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring social enterprise legitimacy within ecosystems from an institutional approach: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Spanuth,

Urbano

2023

Int J Management Reviews

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Balancing Legitimacy in a Context of Nonprofit-Business Hybridity: The Case of the Flemish Wellbeing and Social Economy Sector

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) hybridizing toward the market domain by adopting business practices has sparked an ever-growing debate. There is research showing a rather positive effect on organizational legitimacy. However, considering the literature discussing other performance dimensions (e.g. social effectiveness), this trend is argued to erode the prosocial underpinnings of NPOs, increasingly leaving their stakeholders wondering what distinguishes them from business enterprises. When examining these previous studies, most research only focuses on one dimension of organizational legitimacy and/or one type of stakeholder. In this study, we aim to provide a more fine-grained picture of how nonprofit-business hybridity impacts nonprofit legitimacy by adopting (a) a multi-dimensional understanding of legitimacy, and (b) a multi-stakeholder perspective. We 2 draw on survey data from Flemish NPOs to sample two matched pairs of opposite cases, i.e. a 'low' and 'high' hybridized NPO for qualitative examination. Our findings suggest that nonprofit-business hybridity is significantly detrimental for stakeholders who are closely involved, and beneficial in the eyes of stakeholders who are more distant from the organization.

show abstract

The health and well-being impacts of a work integration social enterprise from a systems perspective

Joyce

Elmes

Campbell

et al. 2021

Health Promotion International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Recent research has drawn upon the social determinants of health (SDH) framework to attempt to systematize the relationship between social enterprise and health. In this article, we adopt a realist evaluation approach to conceptualize social enterprises, and work integration social enterprises in particular, as ‘complex interventions’ that necessarily produce differential health outcomes for their beneficiaries, communities and staff. Drawing upon the findings from four social enterprises involving a range of methods including 93 semi-structured interviews with employees, managers and enterprise partners, together with participant observation, we demonstrate that these health outcomes are influenced by a limitless mix of complex and dynamic interactions between systems, settings, spaces, relationships and organizational and personal factors that cannot be distilled by questions of causality and attribution found in controlled trial designs. Given the increased policy focus on the potential of social enterprises to affect the SDH, this article seeks to respond to evidence gaps about the mechanisms and contexts through which social enterprises promote or constrain health outcomes, and thereby provide greater clarity about how research evidence can be used to support the social enterprise sector and policy development more broadly.

show abstract

Unintended Negative Effects of the Legitimacy-Seeking Behavior of Social Enterprises on Employee Attitudes

Cited by 3 publications

References 61 publications

Exploring social enterprise legitimacy within ecosystems from an institutional approach: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Exploring social enterprise legitimacy within ecosystems from an institutional approach: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Balancing Legitimacy in a Context of Nonprofit-Business Hybridity: The Case of the Flemish Wellbeing and Social Economy Sector

The health and well-being impacts of a work integration social enterprise from a systems perspective

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About