Benefit corporations (BCs) are profit‐with‐purpose organizations regulated by a legal framework for establishing explicit commitments in terms of multi‐stakeholder governance and accountability structures. We comprehensively analyze the theoretical alignment of four concepts (ownership, mission, governance, and accountability) to explain the legal rationale for BCs' unique corporate form. However, the boundaries of BC legislation are blurry, leaving them open to top‐down governance arrangements and weak accountability. To explore this ambiguity, this paper investigates whether BCs implement a de facto (i.e., beyond the letter of the law) multi‐stakeholder structure with governance models and downward accountability mechanisms that balance different stakeholders' interests, instead of focusing only on shareholder profits. This further highlight the soft boundaries imposed by the BC regulatory framework and suggests that more work is needed to explore the relationship between governance models that differently balance stakeholders' claims and the firm's social performance.

Pay-for-performance has been widely adopted in the public sector to improve effectiveness and efficiency in service provision, which in turn positively affects employees’ satisfaction and commitment. Despite the presence of these initiatives in nearly every reform effort, limited concrete evidence of success has been highlighted. Through a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis on 17 social care organizations in Italy, the aim of this work is to contribute to the debate on human resources management practices in the public sector. Results suggest that pay-for-performance is effective when supported by other empowering practices. Furthermore, alternative combinations can produce the same positive effect on satisfaction and commitment.

Using a multi case-study analysis, we shed light on the strategies, practices, and tensions of fund managers acting as impact investors. Results show that while some fund managers experience tension between the social and financial aspects of specific, although relevant, components of the business model, other fund managers experience challenges throughout the business model. The governance component emerges as the most relevant issue and this may help explain why impact washing is a key topic in the impact investing discussion. Relevant implications for practitioners and policy makers are also discussed.

Abstract:Social Enterprise is increasingly becoming a pressing area of study in European faculties, and likewise, a broad range of literature has been produced on the various, relating arguments.One of the aspects least focused upon, however, regards the issue of governance; which is a fundamental aspect when defining a type of governing system that could lead to an improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of social enterprises. The need to combine both social and economic aims in the decision making process also emphasizes the importance of stakeholder participation.Furthermore, seeing as how social enterprises work in an environment of high public involvement, whether it be with public entities or with the community as a whole, issues such as business administration and activity supervision, come to be of high importance. The production of social utility goods and/or services is directed toward a plurality of local actors, which are to be furthermore guaranteed a high level of accountability and transparency. This paper explores governance through an in-depth analysis and comparison of the legislation of eleven countries on social enterprise or social cooperatives

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