The social mission works: internalizing the mission to achieve organizational performance in social enterprises

Abstract

Social enterprises (SE) are mission-driven organizations that pursue both: (1) financial independence from grants or charity by achieving at least small profitability, and (2) positive social and / or environmental impact. While the two objectives are mostly framed as contradictory to each other in the recent literature, we scrutinize this assumption in this investigation. We examine how internalization of mission (IM) by employees impacts on employee mission engagement (EME) by employees and how EME is related to the perceived social mission achievement (PSMA), and perceived organization performance (POP) within the social enterprise setting. A sample of 143 social enterprises was used to confirm the scale and validate the model by structural equation modelling. The findings reveal that internalization of mission impacts on EME and that EME, as expected, is related to organizational outcomes: PSMA and POP. Given that PSMA fully mediates POP, we conclude that the social and economic objectives are fully compatible when the social mission is put at the centre. Even more: POP cannot be achieved without PSMA. The lesson learnt is that the social mission works if it is truly internalized. By focusing on internalization of mission, SEs can avoid tensions among social and economic goals. While hybridity (focus on social and economic ends) is what characterises the mission in a social enterprise, the majority of articles still focus just on achieving one end. We provide a conceptual model (and its empirical validation) of how social organizations achieve both: social objectives and business objectives.