Sustainability of social economy organizations (SEOs): An analysis of the conditions for surviving and thriving

Abstract

Social economy organizations (SEOs), designed to do good for society, have been attracting significant attention as an alternative to purely profit-driven businesses. However, the sustainability of these hybrid organizations has been questioned due to the challenges in meeting the dual bottom-lines of financial performance and social purpose. This article takes a causal-process tracing (CPT) case study approach and analyzes eight SEOs to investigate the common characteristics of sustainable SEOs. The results of the analysis show that effective leadership is a sufficient (but not necessary) condition for the survival of SEOs, while leadership is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for SEOs' thriving. Business competitiveness is found to be necessary for SEOs' long-term success and performance over time. Collaborative networking is a contributory condition for SEOs thriving but not a necessary condition for their survival.

Does the Medium Matter? Linking Citizens’ Use of Communication Platform for Information about Urban Policies to Decision to Trust in Local Government

“…However, it should be noted that all of the information sources used in this study, which together constitute the online medium all incorporate various tools intending to bolster their interactivity, ranging from comment boards to chatrooms to cyber town hall meetings. The city of Seoul has made considerable attempts to enhance the degree of interactivity of its websites, particularly about their urban sustainability initiatives [93,94].…”

Influencing Mechanism of Green Human Resource Management and Corporate Social Responsibility on Organizational Sustainable Performance

“…Moreover, construction companies [8], being a key contributor to development, have also been of interest to researchers with the inclusion of green concepts and social responsibility. The social economy concept has been explained in prior research to emphasize the importance of social responsibility inclusion to achieve sustainability objectives of the organization [9].…”

Hybridity of social enterprise models and ecosystems

“…Source: compiled by authors (According to Alter, 2007;Grassl, 2012;Defourny and Nyssens, 2017;Eldar, 2017;Szymanska & Jegers;2016, Pestoff, 2014 Social Enterprises are broadly called as hybrid organizations: "mishmash" of legal forms (Young, 2012;Eldar, 2017), mixture of different stakeholders (Szymanska & Jegers, 2016), various combination of resources and institutional logics (Defourny & Nyssens, 2017), interplay between profit and social impact objectives (Besley & Ghatak, 2017), activities combining the characteristics of social work and business (Artcer et al, 2016), creating blended value, which includes both social and financial outcomes (Dao et al, 2017). Nevertheless, hybridity as an integration of different logics is a source of innovation (Vickers, I., 2017) and a driver to competitiveness, sustainability, efficiency and professionalization (Pestoff, 2014;Kim et al, 2020).…”