Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between social enterprises’ social orientation and the organizational commitment of their employees. The study also examines differences in organizational commitment between Millennial social enterprise employees and social enterprise employees of earlier generations. The findings from the study indicate that a social enterprise’s pursuit of social purpose, shared decision- making, and social performance are all positively associated with the organizational commitment of its employees. Additionally, the findings suggest that, in general, Millennials have a lower level of organizational commitment to their social enterprise employer than do earlier generations. Indeed, the organizational commitment of Millennials, we find, is primarily (and significantly) influenced only by shared decision-making. These findings contribute to the literature on social enterprise as well as to the literature on organizational commitment by providing insight into unseen aspects of social enterprise management from the perspective of employees. From a practical standpoint, these findings provide social entrepreneurs and managers of social enterprises with practical guidance on how to improve their employees’ organizational commitment.
Highlights
A social enterprise is an organization that engages in the simultaneous pursuit of social purpose and economic profits through business activities
Model 1 of Table 2 shows that all three social orientation variables are significant and positively associated with organizational commitment: social purpose (ß=0.33, p
The results show that Millennials working for social enterprises have significantly less organizational commitment than earlier generations (ß=0.22, p
Summary
A social enterprise is an organization that engages in the simultaneous pursuit of social purpose and economic profits through business activities These organizations operate at the intersection of market, government, and civil society (Nyssens, 2007). They are, able to combine and reflect the state’s pursuit of public benefits, the mutual interests of their members, and their own profit-seeking goals (Defourny & Nyssens, 2017) This position allows them to make better use of each sector’s untapped assets, resources, ideas, knowledge, logic, discourses, creativity, and legitimacy to achieve better outcomes and improved efficiency through multisectoral collaborations. Applying generational theories of human behavior (Howe & Strauss, 2000; Strauss & Howe, 2009), in the study we focus on uncovering whether Millennials—i.e., individuals born after 1982 (Howe & Strauss, 2000)—are more likely than earlier generations to be attracted to work in social enterprises that are more socially oriented
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