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Social enterprises are at risk of undermining the authenticity of their social purpose in the attempt to manage and balance multiple stakeholders' expectations. This study explores dynamics of dual‐mission management in relation to a group of U.K. social enterprises via an inductive qualitative multicases method. Results suggest that approaches to dual‐mission management vary along a continuum, ranging from the dimension of high compartmentalization to the dimension of high integration. It emerged that blended strategic planning, tailored production processes, and blended governance and management structures are critical key drivers of integration approaches to dual‐mission management.

This paper aims to critique the process of corporate-owned, high-tech start-up strategizing through an inductive, longitudinal, case-study of 'UK-Research-Tech'. Insights are given through the combined 'dialectical-paradox' concept, thereby focusing on where 'dialectic' and 'paradox' theorising overlap. Our linked iterative, 'dialogical-dialectic' research approach also reflects CEO/TMT start-up dynamics over time. These foci fill important gaps that impede our better understanding of dialectical, dialogical and paradoxical forces within strategic decision-making. As an interpretative tool, they illuminate CEO/TMT strategizing and changing inter-relationships, affected by broader, volatile, techno-economic contexts, and parent-company influences on ventures. In this case-study, it was found that the CEO's relatively autocratic, parent-framed approach combined with TMT members' contradictory reactions to create 'dialectical-paradox' oppositional forces, eventually only resolved through 'eleventh hour' business strategy changes to rescue the venture. This research contributes to more nuanced understandings of corporate-constrained ventures during early business development from start-up strategic decisions at parent-company level to subsequent conditions of more independent dynamic equilibrium. The 'dialectical-paradox' conceptual lens contributes an innovative critique of processes affecting strategic decision-making dynamics. Another important contribution is the empirically-inspired conceptual model, developed for use both to guide subsequent case-study research analyses and as a reflective tool for CEO/TMT strategic decision-making, especially within corporate inspired start-ups.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of the managerial processes that middle managers can employ to facilitate knowledge integration and transfer within project teams and across organizational boundaries.Design/methodology/approachThe paper has a conceptual framework, which draws on the theory of organizational learning and knowledge management. A resource‐based view of the firm and middle management is developed around the theme of enhancing organizational learning within teams.FindingsThe paper finds that there is a gap in the research as to how knowledge integration and transfer occur within teams. The paper also provides a re‐valuation of middle managers, whose role has been undermined in the wake of organizational downsizing. Furthermore, the paper provides an understanding of how Janczak's three specific managerial processes are relevant in that middle managers can employ them to facilitate knowledge integration and transfer.Practical implicationsThe paper is relevant to practitioners with regard to the practices and processes that middle managers can adopt to facilitate knowledge transfer. It is relevant in that it helps to identify mechanisms to reuse knowledge from project to project.Originality/valueThe paper fills a gap in the theory with regard to the managerial practices and processes that are available to middle management in order to enhance organizational learning within the team and from the team to the rest of the organization.