Doing social good on a sustainable basis: competitive advantage of social businesses

Abstract

The paper is aimed at investigating the capabilities of social entrepreneurship (SE) firms and how they achieve competitive advantage while engaging in social value creation. We employ a business model perspective to understand the (self-) sustaining mechanism for social good. We carry out an in-depth investigation of three social entrepreneurship (SE) ventures. We analyze the history of these ventures to determine how they achieved competitive advantage. The cases are analysed based on the internal development in the context of environmental support. We find that SE ventures, like all other organizations, achieve competitive advantage based on available resources such as reputation and network of the founder, managerial experience and other corporate resources within the firm. We also find that the competitive advantage often comes from innovate usagea practice that is reinforced by the support from institutional environment. Based on our analysis, we conclude that distinct capabilities of social businesses help them achieve competitive advantage, and that policy makers should institutionally support these ventures. Our application of a business model perspective in social entrepreneurship is unique, and advances the understanding of social businesses from a strategic management perspective.

New and renewable energy social enterprises accessing government support: Findings from India

“…This enquiry is about what NRE social enterprises do in practice to access government support. Past research on social entrepreneurship in the Indian context focuses on social innovation, healthcare and sanatation, gender empowerment, and challenges in access to markets, but does not address interactions with government (Bhatt and Altinay, 2013;Mukherji, 2014;Tandon, 2014;Basargekar and Rawat, 2015;Roy and Karna, 2015;Haugh and Talwar, 2016;Ramani et al 2017). In a detailed review by Sengupta et al on social entrepreneurship in emerging economies, dealing with government regulations and policies emerge as one of the challenges that have been mentioned in past research (2018).…”

The Practice and Science of Social Good: Emerging Paths to Positive Social Impact

“…Of the empirical articles, almost one half used quantitative methodology such as survey research (K. Peters & Kashima, 2015), experimental designs (Rixom & Mishra, 2014), or statistical analyses (Taute & McQuitty, 2004), and the remainder used qualitative research methods such as case studies (e.g., Roy & Karna, 2015) or interviews (Viswanathan et al, 2009).…”

“…Several trends have converged in recent years to create a sense of urgency for social good and to bring together grassroots organizations, global leaders, businesses, and social entrepreneurs interested in finding creative, lasting solutions to the greatest challenges of our society (Foley & Chowdhury, 2007; Makwara, 2011; Roy & Karna, 2015; Viswanathan, Seth, Gau, & Chaturvedi, 2009). These challenges include social problems such as mass immigration, uncertain economic futures, human right abuses, food shortages, affordable housing, and inadequate responses to natural and man-made disasters.…”

Employees’ Safety from Psychological Violence in Social Enterprises: State Subsidies or Private Initiative?

“…Despite the evidence that social business provides really tangible benefits by participating in discussions with employees, developing relationships with other stakeholders and at the same time achieving the competitive advantage (in [3,4]), there often remains a strong attitude that the state or international institutions can significantly contribute to the promotion of social responsibility by programmes (in [5,6]). On the other hand, these ideas, although not always publicly expressed, are quite popular even among liberal ideologists who fervently speak in favour of privatisation of the state functions.…”