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Social Enterprise Performance: The Role of Market and Social Entrepreneurship Orientations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Paula Pinheiro Open the ORCID record for Paula Pinheiro [Opens in a new window] ,
Ana Daniel  and
António Moreira
Paula Pinheiro*
Affiliation:
DEGEIT, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Ana Daniel
Affiliation:
DEGEIT, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
António Moreira
Affiliation:
DEGEIT, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
*
ppinheiro@ua.pt; ppinheiro@esgtv.ipv.pt
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Abstract

Market orientation has been presented as an important predictor of business performance, and it is presumed to contribute to long-term success in both profit-oriented and non-profit enterprises. Similarly, entrepreneurial orientation is a concept that has been widely applied to business firms but has not been empirically tested in social enterprises. Moreover, the literature does not present a widely accepted and tested conceptual model relating entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and performance, in the realm of social enterprises. In order to fill this gap, this research assesses how these strategic orientations affect social and economic performance in the setting of social enterprises. Structural equation modeling was used as a means to analyze the hypothesized relationships. After testing the model on a sample of 805 Portuguese social enterprises, the findings show that both social entrepreneurship and market orientations significantly impact social performance. The results also indicate that market orientation mediates the effect of social entrepreneurship orientation on the performance of social enterprises.

Keywords

Social entrepreneurship orientationEntrepreneurial orientationMarket orientationSocial enterprise performanceStructural equation modelMediationPortugal

Information

Type
Research Papers
Information
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 45 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © International Society for Third-Sector Research 2020

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