Entrepreneurial orientation, legal forms, and social enterprises’ experience with logic plurality

Abstract

Scholars have increasingly sought for a systematic understanding of mechanisms explicating organizations' heterogeneous experiences with logic plurality. To address this, I examine organizations that engage in venture philanthropy and analyze how their legal forms and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) directly and interactively affect their experience with traditional philanthropy (TP) logic and venture capitalism (VC) logic. Analyses of seven cases offer an integrative framework for understanding four experience types: logics complementing (nonprofit and a high level of EO), logics contesting (nonprofit and a low level of EO), logics coexisting (for-profit and a high level of EO), and logics isolating (for-profit and a low level of EO). EO reshapes nonprofits' cognitive views toward institutional constraints, enabling them to effectively integrate TP and VC elements into new hybrid models and become blended hybrids. Findings of this article also suggest that the role of EO is more significant for blended hybrids than segmented/segregated hybrids.