Blurring the Boundaries: The Interplay of Gender and Local Communities in the Commercialization of Social Ventures

Abstract

This paper examines the critical role of gender in the commercialization of social ventures. We argue that cultural beliefs about what is perceived to be appropriate work for each gender influence how founders of social ventures incorporate commercial activity into their ventures. Specifically, we argue and show that although cultural beliefs that disassociate women from commercial activity may result in female social venture founders being less likely to use commercial activity than their male counterparts, these effects are moderated by cultural beliefs about gender and commercial activity within founders' local communities. The presence of female business owners in the same community mitigates the role of founders' gender on the use of commercial activity. We examine these issues through a novel sample of 584 social ventures in the United States. We constructively replicate and extend these findings with a supplemental analysis of a second sample, the full population of new nonprofit organizations founded during a two-year period in the United States (n 31,160). By highlighting how gendered aspects of both the social and commercial sectors interact to shape the use of commercial activity by social venture founders, our findings contribute to research on hybrid organizations in the social sector, communities as a context for the enactment of gender, and the enactment of gender in entrepreneurship.

Bowing before Dual Gods: How Structured Flexibility Sustains Organizational Hybridity

“…Varied sources contribute to hybridity at the organizational level. In some cases, founders’ backgrounds and identities motivate them to proactively create hybrid organizations (Dimitriadis et al, 2017; Wry and York, 2017). In other cases, hybridity stems from unplanned shifts in organizational membership (Zilber, 2002; Delmestri, 2006) or changes in regulatory demands (Christensen and Laegreid, 2011), political context (Nee, 1992), cultural expectations (Glynn and Lounsbury, 2005), or access to resources (Galaskiewicz, Bielefeld, and Dowell, 2006).…”

How Does the Development of the Social Enterprise Sector Affect Entrepreneurial Behavior? An Empirical Analysis

“…Besides, demographic factors such as gender [24][25][26][27][32][33][34][35][36][37], age [24][25][26][27]32,33,38], or education [24][25][26][27]32,33,38,39] are also important drivers of SE.…”

Social entrepreneurship in context: pathways for new contributions in the field

“…This refers to the beneficiaries, founders, managers, intermediaries, investors/funders, policymakers, and consumers of social entrepreneurial activities. Most research on social entrepreneurship focuses on either the organizations or founders (e.g., Dimitriadis et al, 2017;Powell et al, 2019) but there are other stakeholders that could offer potentially interesting studies of context in social entrepreneurship. Other types of stakeholders such as beneficiaries are an important context to understand the outcomes of social entrepreneurial intervention (e.g., homeless youths' life satisfaction, depression, alcohol use; see Ferguson, 2012;Ferguson & Xie, 2008).…”