Prosocial Organizing and the Distance between Core and Community Work

Abstract

Research on prosocial organising has made great strides in understanding how organisations foster durable social change through core work directly targeting specific beneficiaries (e.g. work integration), and also through community work to obtain the cooperation of key stakeholders. Yet, extant research tends to focus on community work that is closely related – or proximal – to core work and is thus weakly equipped to explain how seemingly unrelated, distal community work unfolds. To address this puzzle, we study an Italian work integration social enterprise that engaged in anti-Mafia work to support its core work of reintegrating people with mental health issues. We unveiled the process whereby it came to engage in this distal community work, how this work facilitated the destigmatisation of the beneficiaries and, ultimately, their reintegration in the community. We contribute to the literature on prosocial organising by providing a more complex and nuanced view of the relationship between core and community work, as well as how to manage stigma.

Spatial and temporal characteristics, spatial clustering and governance strategies for regional development of social enterprises in China

“…Previous research has established that external environmental factors such as human resources [ 15 , 16 ], cross-sector collaboration networks [ 17 , 18 ], group diversification [ 19 ], resource interdependence among heterogeneous population organizations [ 20 , 21 ], inter-organizational competitive pressure [ 22 ], and homogeneity survival pressure [ 23 ], and elements such as pro-social motives [ 24 ], ESG concepts [ 25 ], contractual cooperation [ 26 ], and other characteristics of differences in their own modes of operation, affect the regional differences of social enterprises in China. The successful management experiences [ 27 , 28 ], implementation of management strategies and their dissemination [ 29 , 30 ] also have an impact on the scale expansion of social enterprises.…”

Organizing for Smart City Development: Research at the crossroads. Introduction to the Special Issue

“…Investigating how commoning processes, institutional logics and citizen participation dynamics vary across regions and cities can provide valuable insights into the contingencies and complexities of smart city development (e.g. Cavotta & Mena, 2023; Kornberger & Clegg, 2004; Sapsed & Salter, 2004). This research agenda calls for comparative studies that explore the similarities and differences in organizational dynamics and practices and ultimately contribute to a broader understanding of smart city project organizing.…”

Social Enterprises as Agents of Social Justice: A Rawlsian perspective on institutional capacity

“…Additionally, many researchers are attracted to studying social enterprise because they regard it as a promising approach to addressing social problems, such as economic exclusion, environmental degradation, and social inequalities (Katz & Page, 2010;Smith, Gonin, & Besharov, 2013;Wry & York, 2017;Mair & Rathert, 2021b). It is associated with promoting the public good (Vedula et al, 2021), catalyzing positive social change (Stephan, Patterson, (Cavotta & Mena, 2023;Venkataraman, Vermeulen, Raaijmakers, & Mair, 2016).…”