Hybrid Organising in Social Entrepreneurship: How Do Founders of Social Ventures Experience the Tensions in the Areas of Acquiring and Allocating Resources?

Sammanfattning: Purpose – This study attempts to advance our understanding of social ventures as organisational hybrids by seeking the founder’s experience of selected areas of tensions. We take extant literature on social entrepreneurship and hybrid organising as a point of departure to examine the experiences of practitioners. We aim to answer the question: ‘How do founders of social ventures experience the tensions in the areas of acquiring and allocating resources?’ Methodology – This study employs a qualitative research approach. Findings stem from ten semi-structured interviews with founders of social ventures in Sweden. The data was analysed by employing a combined approach, namely a direct content analysis followed by procedures of the Gioia methodology. Findings – Results indicate that balancing activities of social value creation with activities of value capture together with challenges in measuring social impact comprise the main themes in the area of allocating resources. With regards to acquiring resources, founders experienced tensions with acquiring financial and human resources. Results indicate the influence of legitimacy, networks, the social venture’s social mission and its legal form on the ability to acquire resources. Research limitations / implications – This study demonstrates the influence of the national context on the experiences of hybridity and its associated tensions. Further, it indicates the relevance of the customer-beneficiary relationship for the scholarly debate on a key challenge of social entrepreneurship, namely balancing value creation and value capture activities. This study is based on data gathered in ten semi-structured interviews at one point in time. The results may not be indicative of the entire population social ventures and are anchored in the national context of Sweden. The findings of this study should, therefore, be viewed within its limitation, namely its focus on the founder’s experiences, its snapshot character and its rather descriptive than explicatory perspective. Practical implications – This study offers (prospective) founders of social ventures guidance in mastering tensions associated with acquiring and allocating resources. It, therefore, presents insights on topics such as understanding the risk of mission drift, considering the legal incorporation, measuring social impact and building legitimacy and networks.