Comprender las motivaciones a lo largo de las etapas del ciclo de vida de una empresa social
| Autor | Larissa Martins Lehmen, Maira Petrini, João Vitor Severo da Silva |
| Cargo | Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil / Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil / Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil |
1
BAR-Brazilian Administration Review, 20(3), e220187, 2023.
Research Article
Data Availability: BAR – Brazilian Administration Review encourages data sharing but, in compliance with ethical principles, it does not demand the
disclosure of any means of identifying research subjects.
Plagiarism Check: BAR maintains the practice of submitting all documents received to the plagiarism check, using specific tools, e.g.: iThenticate.
Peer Review: is responsible for acknowledging an article’s potential contribution to the frontiers of scholarly knowledge on business or public administration.
The authors are the ultimate responsible for the consistency of the theoretical references, the accurate report of empirical data, the personal perspectives,
and the use of copyrighted material. This content was evaluated using the double-blind peer review process. The disclosure of the reviewers’ information on
the first page is made only after concluding the evaluation process, and with the voluntary consent of the respective reviewers.
Copyright: The authors retain the copyright relating to their article and grant the journal BAR – Brazilian Administration Review, the right of first publication,
with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) The authors also retain their moral rights
to the article, including the right to be identified as the authors whenever the article is used in any form.
Keywords:
motivation; life cycle stages; social
enterprises; social entrepreneurship
JEL Code:
nonadherent
Received:
December, 19, 2022.
This paper was with the authors for one revision
Accepted:
August 01, 2023.
Publication date:
August 18, 2023.
Corresponding author:
Maira Petrini
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul,
Av. Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon, CEP 90619-900,
Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Editor-in-Chief:
Ivan Lapuente Garrido
(Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Brazil).
Associate Editor:
Jeerson Monticelli
(Universidade Federal Uberlândia, Brazil).
Reviewers:
Cristina Dai Prá Martens
(Universidade Nove de Julho, Brazil)
and two anonymous reviewers.
Editorial assistants:
Eduarda Anastacio, Kler Godoy, and Simone Rafael
(ANPAD, Maringá, Brazil).
ABSTRACT
Social entrepreneurs have several motivations that lead them to open and continue
their companies, which vary according to the stage of the social enterprise’s life cycle.
This study seeks to analyze the motivations throughout the stages of a social enter-
prise’s life cycle. To do this, we carried out a qualitative research with primary data
collected through interviews with experts and social entrepreneurs and secondary
data collected through documents and websites. The results indicate three types of
motivational factors: essential factors, building factors, and solidifying factors. Each
type plays dierent roles during life cycle. All essential factors are present across all
stages of the life cycle. The building factors are found mainly in the early stages, while
dierent solidifying factors are distributed throughout the stages of the life cycle. The
essential factors are the main dierence between social and traditional entrepreneurs.
This research brings new insights by linking motivational factors to the life cycle stages
of social enterprises. Entrepreneurs can use this information to identify their stage and
leverage their motivators for development, while training programs can be tailored to
better align with the life cycle stage of social enterprises.
Understanding the Motivations Throughout
the Stages of a Social Enterprise’s Life Cycle
Larissa Martins Lehmen1 , Maira Petrini1 , João Vitor Severo da Silva1
1 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
How to cite: Lehmen, L. M., Petrini, M., & Silva, J. V. S. (2023). Understanding the motivations throughout the stages of a social enterprise’s life cycle. BAR-
Brazilian Administration Review, 20(3), e220187.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-7692bar2023220187
2
Understanding the motivations throughout the stages of a social enterprise’s life cycle
BAR-Brazilian Administration Review, 20(3), e220187, 2023.
INTRODUCTION
Social entrepreneurship involves the process of inno-
vation using a combination of resources to catalyze
social change and meet social needs (Dees, 1998;
Mair & Martí, 2006). According to Doherty, Haugh,
and Lyon (2014), social enterprises seek the dual mis-
sion of having a social purpose and achieving finan-
cial sustainability, not fitting perfectly into the con-
ventional categories of private, public, or non-profit
organizations. In addition, its goals are rooted in the
values of its founders (Zahra et al., 2009), such as the
desire for change in society aimed at social well-be-
ing (Bacq et al., 2016; Renko, 2013). For Zahra et al.
(2009), it is necessary to value the motivations of in-
dividuals and groups that assume the risks associat-
ed with the design, construction, launch, and main-
tenance of new organizations and business models.
Even so, the motivations are accompanied by sub-
stantial challenges throughout the life cycle of social
enterprises.
There are several risks during the life cycle of these
businesses (Zahra et al., 2009), in dierent stages of
development until the business reaches maturity and
establishes itself in the market (Oliveira & Fukayama,
2018). The life cycle of a social enterprise begins
with the identification of a social problem (Limeira &
Freire, 2018) and the search for solutions in a business
idea (Vasconcelos & Lezana, 2012), aiming at a val-
id business model (Limeira & Freire, 2018; Oliveira &
Fukayama, 2018; Sen, 2007). Finally, the entrepreneur
seeks scale and resources for company growth in or-
der to find space in the market and ensure social im-
pact (Cremonezzi et al., 2013; Limeira & Freire, 2018).
Thus, despite being the subject of some research,
understanding the motivations of social entrepre-
neurs remains a suggestion for future research by
dierent authors (Germak & Robinson, 2014; Gupta
et al., 2020; Stephan & Drencheva, 2017). In addition,
there are few studies that relate the motivations of
the social entrepreneur to the course of the social
enterprise. Stephan and Drencheva (2017) suggest
that future research explores changes in entrepre-
neur motivations and personality throughout the so-
cial enterprise life cycle. Germak and Robinson (2014)
indicate the need for comparative research on mo-
tivation between nascent and mature social entre-
preneurs. Furthermore, Saebi et al. (2019) stress the
importance of associating the individual and organi-
zational level in research on social enterprises. In this
context, there is a research gap regarding how these
motivations present themselves over time and how
they impact and are impacted by the life cycle of a
social enterprise.
We start from the argument that, during the dier-
ent stages of business development, dierent moti-
vations stand out and alternate. Understanding how
and what motivations are manifested during the life
cycle is important in the search for the strengthening
and continuity of the social enterprise. In this way,
the present work seeks to answer the following re-
search question: ‘How are the social entrepreneur’s
motivations presented during the stages of the life
cycle of social enterprises?’
The results indicate that there are three types of
motivational factors: essential factors, building fac-
tors, and solidifying factors. The essential factors run
through all stages of the life cycle, the building factors
are concentrated in the ideation phase, while the so-
lidifying factors are distributed throughout all stages
of the life cycle.
From a theoretical point of view, our research ex-
pands knowledge about social entrepreneur’s mo-
tivations, bringing a novelty relating motivational
factors to the stages of the life cycle of social enter-
prises. From a practitioner point of view, entrepre-
neurs can analyze what stage of the cycle they are
in and what motivations they can mobilize for the
development of social enterprises. Moreover, training
and development programs can be developed in a
way that is more aligned with the stage of life of so-
cial enterprises.
THEORETICAL REFERENCE
Social entrepreneurship and social enterprise
Mair and Martí (2006) define social entrepreneurship
as the process of using innovative combinations of
resources to catalyze social change and meet social
needs. For Austin, Stevenson, and Wei-Skillern (2012),
the term describes a value creation process that oc-
curs within or across the non-profit, commercial, or
government sectors. Allied to these definitions, it is
also important to note that social enterprises seek
the dual mission of having a social purpose while re-
maining financially sustainable (Comini et al., 2012;
Doherty et al., 2014). In the quest to solve social
problems, such as poverty or the environmental cri-
sis, they identify opportunities and create types of
services and products for the community (Petrella &
Richez-Battesti, 2014), associating the social role with
the company’s strategy (Barki et al., 2020). In this con-
text, the social entrepreneur plays a central role in the
social enterprise, conceiving the initial idea, launch-
ing and working to sustain the business (Germak &
Robinson, 2014), with the company’s goals being
deeply linked to its personal values (Nicolás Martínez
et al., 2019; Zahra et al., 2009).
Para continuar a ler
PEÇA SUA AVALIAÇÃO
COPYRIGHT TV Trade Media, Inc.
COPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
