Governing Social-Business Hybrids. A Literature Review (WITHDRAWN)

Abstract

There is consensus among scholars about the importance of governance in social enterprises. Yet, existing literature reviews have refrained from addressing social enterprise governance. This review inquires about the unique governance challenges that social enterprises face and how they address them. Based on a systematically collected and analyzed sample of 72 peer-reviewed journal articles across multiple disciplines, the review identifies accountabilities to multiple principal stakeholders, agents that combine altruism and self-interestedness, and the paradoxical relationship between social and commercial objectives as fundamental governance challenges in social businesses. ‘Hard’ governance, comprising formal structure and control addresses these challenges to some extent. However, impediments related to a mismatch between the assumptions of agency-based governance mechanisms and the context of social enterprises, the insufficiency of differentiated governance structures to balance social and commercial objectives over time, and technical and ideological difficulties of social measurement and reporting limit the applicability and effectivity of ‘hard’ governance. ‘Soft’ governance, comprising organizational culture, identity, socio-psychological mechanisms, and subtle mediation forces circumvent some of these impediments, making them a necessary supplement for social enterprise governance.