Harnessing sustainable development from niche marketing and coopetition in social enterprises

Abstract

This article reports on strategic practices within social enterprises to drive social, economic, and environmental value. Multiple case studies were conducted across diverse third sector organisations to examine how managers deploy commercial and social marketing activities to fulfil sustainable missions. Results showed social enterprises attract target audiences by engaging in inclusive forms of niche marketing. The organisations leverage relationships across their horizontal and vertical value chains to enhance their own resources and capabilities while advancing wider social and environmental interests. Deep collaboration between social enterprises and their stakeholders sometimes extends to forging alliances with competitors. This research contributes the first empirical evidence of how coopetition leads to competitive advantage in profit-for-purpose organisations, and it proposes a model to show how cocreation of shared value with actors across multilevels of interdependent systems paves the way for sustainable development outcomes to be achieved.