Social Business Hybrids & Hybrid Entrepreneurs
According to a general definition, hybrids are those organizations that combine aspects of multiple organizational forms experiencing different internal tensions and identities (Haveman & Rao, 2006; Hoffmann, Badiane, & Haigh, 2012). In organizational studies hybridity encompasses multiple organizational identities (Prat & Foremann, 2000), multiple organizational forms (Battilana & Lee, 2014; Pache & Santos, 2013), as well as multiple institutional logics (Pache & Santos, 2010). Hybrid organization studies have a tradition in the organizational and institutional theory offering insights into the opportunities and challenges faced by organizations with multiple logics (Havemann & Rao 2006, Marquis & Lounsbury 2007). More recently, the advances in this research field have also captured the attention of entrepreneurial scholars (McMullen & Warninck, 2016). Nowadays, thousands of ventures worldwide combine aspects of business with a social objectives (Lepoutre et al. 2013) and thus for this reason they represent a new form of ventures blending economic and social logics (Battilana & Lee, 2014). Differently from the pure social entrepreneurship (Battilana & Lee, 2014), the sustainability of social business hybrids depends both on the advancement of their social mission and on their commercial performance.
Social Identity to explain the Social Impact of Hybrid Companies
Using social identity theory Fosfuri et al. (2016) demonstrate that hybridity triggers demand-side dynamics especially for social business hybrids that care about the symbolic meaning of their products and services (Fosfuri et al. 2015; Santos et al. 2015). On the one hand, social business hybrids interact with the marketplace first, by supporting certain social values (Fosfuri et al., 2011) and thus, by establishing a value-based relationship with individuals who care about a particular set of social values. On the other hand, the social identity formed by people who care about the same social values the firm supports generates the pattern of consumption that is aligned with such values, transforming the product or the service in a symbolic consumption and thus, accordingly, ventures can compete by differentiating from competitors (Fosfuri et al., 2016).
The project has been developed along three main level of analysis and methodology. First, a survey to B-Corporations and their founders with the objective to have a comprehensive view of the phenomenon, profiling the new form of hybrid entrepreneurs and the founding teams, and at the same time to understand value & community-based strategies in relation with innovation activities and companies’ performance. Second, through experimental designs the project has had the purpose to understand the impact of different value-based strategies and the role of power of the company on the community and the extent of congruence of values between them on the rise of symbolic consumption. Finally, through a case study, the project has described more in details the trade-offs of how community-based strategies lead to a differentiation advantage.
