The moderating effects of organizational identity on collaboration in social enterprises

Abstract

Recognizing that a core ability of a social enterprise is to collaborate with a range of partners, our study assesses how a social enterprise’s Community Identity moderates its ability to develop meaningful collaborative relationships with others outside the organization through which to deliver on its social mission objectives. We draw on the institutional logics and organizational identities literatures to develop the notion of a community identity as being coherent with the institutional logics that shape organizational practices to achieve legitimacy for this organizational form. We argue that social enterprises require an organizational identity that demonstrates its adherence to a normative, other-directedness that reflects its attention to societal goals that requires it to make clear its commitment to inclusive governance, transparent systems, and processes for engaging with a wide range of partners in order to address social needs.