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Scaling-up social enterprises: The effects of geographic context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2018

Patricia Doyle Corner  and
Kate Kearins
Patricia Doyle Corner*
Affiliation:
Management Department, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
Kate Kearins
Affiliation:
Office of the Dean, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
*
Corresponding author: trish.corner@aut.ac.nz
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Abstract

Social enterprises implement business-like approaches to address social problems. Scale-up of these enterprises beyond one geographical context can extend their impact to better match the scope of problems being addressed. Unfortunately, many social enterprises start but relatively few expand to new contexts, making scale-up one of the most important but least understood outcomes of social entrepreneurship. We explore this outcome empirically, extending existing research that is predominantly conceptual. The study adopts a multicase study research design. A dynamic capabilities framework reveals how resources are amassed and configured for expansion, a process that can be more difficult for social compared to commercial enterprises. Findings suggest scale-up may be a second act of social entrepreneurship because dissimilarities between initial and scale-up contexts necessitate product modification, different partnerships, and idiosyncratic resource configurations. We thus call into question existing literature’s focus on standardization – generic resource configurations – for scaling-up social enterprises to new geographical contexts.

Keywords

social entrepreneurshipgeographic contextresource configurationsscaling-up social enterprisesdynamic capabilities
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 87 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2018

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Footnotes

*

A more rudimentary manuscript reflecting 1/3 of the data reported herein was presented at the Academy of Management Conference, 2013.

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