Abstract
Social enterprises, organizations that pursue social purposes while generating profits, have garnered attention recently as potential key players for a sustainable economy. However, research on the perception of social enterprises by lay people has been ignored even though positive reception of social enterprises is an important condition for their sustainability. In the present study, we compared for-profit enterprise employees (n = 200) and social enterprise employees (n = 162) and examined their differences in attitude toward the profit-making aspects of social enterprises as well as the employees working for social enterprises. The results showed that for-profit enterprises overestimated that social enterprise employees were extrinsically motivated and underestimated their prosocial intentions. In addition, for-profit enterprise employees were less favorable toward the profit-making aspects of social enterprises, including payment of high salaries for the social enterprise employees and using donations to run social enterprises. Interestingly, the difference between for-profit and social enterprise employees in their attitude toward the profit-making aspects of social enterprises was explained by lay theories of altruism called “pure altruism.” The present research makes important contributions by identifying the psychological mechanisms that underlie individuals’ perceptions and attitude toward social enterprises.
Highlights
A social enterprise is a novel type of enterprise with a relatively short history [1]
By comparing these two groups, we aim to show that the general population is more skeptical of the intentions of social enterprises than employees working for the same companies
There was a higher proportion of women in the social enterprise employees (73.5%) than in the for-profit enterprise employees (50.0%), χ2(355) = 20.23, p < 0.001
Summary
A social enterprise is a novel type of enterprise with a relatively short history [1]. Western Europe, England, was among the first to publicly recognize the concept of social enterprise in the early 1990s. This new form of organization executes business activities, including the production and sales of goods and services, while pursuing social purposes [2]. There has been institutional support from governments and policy makers to promote social enterprises, confusion around the concept abounds. The nature of a social enterprise deviating from the existing organizations, which are either for-profit or nonprofit, seems to make lay people resistant to this novel type of organization [10]. There is “misunderstanding” of the nature of social enterprises among the general population, which makes it important to unravel the reasons for such misunderstanding
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
