Search results

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding impact measurement on social enterprises (SEs). The findings provide a more nuanced perspective on tensions that often emerge from SEs journeys by presenting the complexities which social entrepreneurs and investors should be attentive to.

This research used grounded theory as the means to explore how stakeholders accomplish the requirements for impact measurement, overcoming the challenges that arise in the process. Through 18 semi-structured interviews, the authors develop a conceptual model to better understand how a practice that is often taken for granted might compromise SEs achievements and sustainability in the long term.

The proposed model uncovered an unintended consequence of impact measurement: mission drift. The requirements to assess the social impact raise expectations on different actors and create challenges that affect the true purpose of SEs, the delivery of their social mission.

This study contributes to research and practice. First, the authors develop a theoretical model for social entrepreneurs and social investors to shed light on the hidden consequences of impact measurement. Second, the authors strengthen the knowledge in the field by conducting a study on SEs outside the mainstream Western-centric context.

The authors enrich the literature by exploring the tensions related to impact measurement in SEs in the Global South and unravel new perspectives on the subject.

Previous literature has emphasized that social enterprises (SEs) are challenged by their pursuit of divergent social and financial goals, often resulting in tensions leading to a mission drift. This study aims to provide an alternative view wherein these organizations fail to make deliberate and exclusive choices between their goals. In this paper, the authors critically review previous findings on mission drift and present a new concept built on the paradox theory.

This conceptual paper draws upon previous literature on mission drift in SEs. The authors took an integrative review approach to provide an overview of the topic in which the research is still interdisciplinary. The paradox theory approach has been used to guide the discussion and expand the findings.

The authors put forward the concept of spaces of vulnerability, which arise from the tensions faced by SEs between their social and financial objectives and which can lead them to suffer mission drift. The authors propose to shift attention from the sources and strategies of mission drift to the processes involved in the composition of those spaces where missions can become more vulnerable but not necessarily drift.

This perspective adds value to practitioners by increasing the likelihood of SEs surviving multiple logics and clarifying conflicts between social and financial goals in advance. Founders and managers might not only balance their dual missions but also understand their respective roots underlying typologies with regards to decision-making.

The authors enrich the literature by exploring how SEs can deal with tensions related to their multiple goals and sustain their social mission in the long term by offering a theoretical discussion and new forms to consider their dual objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to overcome the challenges of doing research in pluralistic settings by performing multi-event ethnographies. The proposal redirects the efforts of longitudinal data collection toward field-configuring events (FCEs), wherein multiple organizations with divergent perspectives over an issue are strategizing in concentrated efforts, at the same time and space. The authors apply traditional ethnographic tools in this understudied setting. On the one hand, these tools allow for a thick description that results in in-depth accounts of actors within FCEs. On the other hand, they provide flexibility because they can be used in complementary ways.

The authors propose the use of three interconnected ethnographic tools in multiple events: shadowing, practitioner's diary and researcher's reflexive journal.

The illustration of an ongoing research project showed how the approach helped the researchers to follow a practitioner in multiple discursive spaces but also to see how the practitioner, even with a different status in a later FCE, transported a deviant practice that denounces his persistent disadvantaged position in the field. The approach delineated here allowed the researchers to open a new window for the appreciation of the activities of marginal actors fighting against hegemonic discourses.

The application of the shadowing technique might be challenging. Attention might also be paid to the implications of previous FCEs to current dynamics.

The tools developed in this approach have a large potential to have practical implications, as the practitioner accounts of the phenomenon in question are at the center of the data collection and analysis.

The proposal contributes to the literature on organizational ethnography by drawing attention to the importance of tracking multiple events, not only different sites, to unveil organizational practices in pluralistic settings as events progress over time.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the context and the content of the six papers that follow in this special issue on “New Forms of Organizational Ethnography”.

This editorial explains the burgeoning interest in organizational ethnography over the last decade in terms of several favourable conditions that have supported this resurgence. It also offers a general view of the nature and diversity of new forms of organizational ethnography in studies of management and organization.

New forms of organizational ethnography have emerged in response to rapidly changing organizational environments and technological advances as well as the paradigmatic transformation of ethnography and ascendency of discursive and practice-based studies.

The editorial highlights an “ethnographic turn” in management and organization studies that is characterized by a renewal of the discipline through the proliferation of new forms of organizational ethnography. A focus on new organizational phenomena, methodological innovation and novel ways of organizing fieldwork constitute the three main pillars of new forms of organizational ethnography. It encourages researchers to develop forums and platforms designed to exploit these novel forms of organizational ethnography.

The purpose of this study is to examine to what extent emotional experiences lived in mega-events and ecological orientation of citizens could act as direct antecedents of city brand attitude improvements. In addition, it addresses the effect in terms of a perceived quality of life that a city brand consolidation would be able to bring the citizens of a particular place. Cities must manage and administer their geographical territories as if they were brands, seeking to increase the benefits to society.

An empirical study was performed by collecting information from 398 residents of Aguascalientes (Mexico) during the National Fair of San Marcos in 2011.

Results show how in order to increase city brand attitudes, both the focus on mega-events and the ecological orientation are two successful ways. Moreover, improvements in city brand attitudes can bring significant benefits on the positive perception of quality of life among citizens.

This investigation has made progress in implementing the experiential marketing channeled through emotional experiences in mega-events and, particularly, in environmentally oriented mega-events, which is able to improve ecological orientation of citizens. To date, no evidence of empirical research referenced in mega-events of the features of the National Fair of San Marcos, Mexico, exists.

International business (IB) education typically focuses on the multinational enterprise (MNE) and how it navigates varying institutional setups for its own benefit. This reductionist and MNE-centric approach underplays the influence these firms have on the societal and environmental fabric of the geographies they are operating in. This paper aims to propose integrating systems thinking into IB education to address this shortcoming with the intention to setup IB education to engage with wicked grand challenges.

This conceptual paper offers an approach for integrating complexity, criticality and diversity into IB education through teaching systems thinking capabilities.

Integrating systems thinking into IB education allows for a more realistic appreciation of IB’s contribution to addressing grand challenges. The authors propose a systems thinking perspective to IB education and offer how systems thinking capabilities could be taught in IB.

Grand challenges are characterised by wicked problems. Addressing them requires a multilevel, cross-disciplinary approach that takes into consideration the inter- and intradependencies of all actors within a system.