Shared Values and Social Value Creation in a Nascent Organization

Abstract

We address a central gap in our understanding of social entrepreneurship by scrutinizing the processes through which nascent organizations create social innovation—new practices that create social value to beneficiaries. More specifically, our study examines the role that shared values play in a nascent social organization’s efforts to conceive, develop, and deliver social value. Our inductive analysis highlights how the purported social value emerged from organizational leadership’s initial vision that committed the organization to provide specific value to beneficiaries that motivated the development of related organizational practices. Initially, members of the organization formed negative value judgments, as they perceived the practices and outcomes to be misaligned with members’ salient values. Members’ judgments concerning social and private value shifted despite organizational practices remaining largely unchanged, as their salient shared values shifted from other-directed caring to reciprocal communality and personal archievement. Our study contributes by theorizing social value and elaborating how shared values amongst organizational members influence how social organizations develop.