Passion for Purpose: Aspirational Fantasy and Organizational Form Choice

Abstract

How do entrepreneurs select their chosen organizational form? In this paper we adopt a novel theoretical perspective to examine how social entrepreneurs choose between alternative forms. We employ the concept of aspirational fantasy to explain organizational form choice and illustrate the value of this approach with qualitative, empirical data from social entrepreneurs who have adopted the community interest company (CIC), a relatively new organizational form that was established specifically to enable social enterprises to better manage the tensions associated with pursuing multiple, and at times conflicting, goals. Exploring in-depth the processes of founder and leader selection of this new corporate form, we draw on ideas from psychoanalytic theory, specifically desire and fantasy, to develop a ‘Time-Fold’ model of organizational form choice. The concept of aspirational fantasy upon which the model is based incorporates affective attachments to an ethical past, hopes for a utopian future, and present anxiety over perceived tensions within the CIC structure. It therefore draws on ideas of temporality in which past, present and future coalesce in the fantasmatic construction of an idealized organizational form. In proposing this approach, we contribute to debates on micro-processes of socially entrepreneurial behaviour, affect and entrepreneurship, and organizational form choice.