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Of Principal and Principle: Valuing Social Enterprises as Hybrid Organizations

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Emily Barman, Boston University

Description

Semester:

  • Fall 2013

Speakers:

Emily Barman, Sociology Department, Boston University

Lecture Time:

Fri, October 18, 2013 @ 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Lecture Location:

Room K1310, Ross School of Business

Speaker Webpage(s):

http://www.bu.edu/sociology/faculty-staff/faculty/emily-barman/

Introduced By:

No introduction available.

Abstract

This paper examines how social enterprises negotiate the presence of institutional complexity as hybrid entities, embracing mission and market logics, via the lens of valuation. In organizational theory, an institutional logic is defined as a fixed and stable understanding of the expected goals and modes of action that govern a specific societal sector, such as the market, state, or family. Institutional complexity occurs when organizations and their fields are subject to multiple logics and so experience conflicting expectations as to appropriate lines of conduct. Through a case study of a social enterprise funder as a valuation entrepreneur, I analyze the construction of the dominant valuation measure used to assess the worth of social enterprises in the US. Contributing to scholarship that specifies the repertoire of responses to institutional complexity, I identify the strategy of “multivalence,” which entails organizations negotiating institutional complexity by the use of symbols (words, practice, and goods) that have resonance within each of the multiple logics with which they engage. The use of multivalence is conditional on the presence of organizational members with both the communicative need to fit with multiple audiences and the adequate technical expertise to successfully do so.

Recording & Additional Notes

No additional notes available.