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Stakeholders Matter: How Social Enterprises Address Mission Drift

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Ramus

    (Católica Lisbon, School of Business and Economics)

  • Antonino Vaccaro

    (IESE Business School)

Abstract

This study explores social enterprises’ strategies for addressing mission drift. Relying on an inductive comparative case study of two Italian social enterprises, we show how stakeholder engagement combined with social accounting can successfully support a social venture to re-balance its positioning between wealth generation and social value creation. Indeed, stakeholder engagement helps the internal actors of a social enterprise to rationalize and embody pro-social values previously abandoned, while social accounting reinforces this embodiment process by showing the reintroduced social commitment of the social enterprise to external audiences. Conversely, strategies focused only on social accounting and without significant engagement of external stakeholders prove to be unsuccessful in counterbalancing mission drift because they fail to activate the necessary process of internal re-introduction and operationalization of pro-social values and objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Ramus & Antonino Vaccaro, 2017. "Stakeholders Matter: How Social Enterprises Address Mission Drift," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 307-322, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:143:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-014-2353-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2353-y
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    References listed on IDEAS

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