Becoming a Group: A Social Identity Formation Approach to Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Our understanding of the processes that lead to the formation and change of social identities especially in smaller groups has become broader in the past 15 years. However, our knowledge of how larger- scale groups with weakly defined ingroup-outgroup boundaries initially develop, negotiate and re-negotiate their social identity still remains limited. This study investigates this via the case of social entrepreneurs in Germany – a group that is still in the formation process. In order to investigate their social identity formation process, we draw on extensive documental data, covering a period of 20 years, 15 months of observational data as well as on interview data. We develop grounded theory and a process model depicting the dialectic nature of inductive and deductive processes of social identity formation initiated by individuals as well as by superordinate group categories which in combination lead to iterative changes in group boundary perceptions. More concretely, we elaborate on five phases of social identity formation: genesis, initial expansion, expansion & intrusion, diminution & connivance, and expansion & re-intrusion. Our study adds to the growing research on social identity formation processes as well as to research in the field of social entrepreneurship and highlights how the group as an entity, supporting organizations and individuals contribute to the formation of this new social group over time.