Subjective Experiences of Positive Impact in Social Enterprises: Working for Impact, Seeing Impact

Abstract

Individuals start and work in social enterprises anticipating positive impact from their work, thus aligning their work with their values and motivations. Yet, the social entrepreneurship literature assumes that individuals in social enterprises subjectively experience their work as making a positive difference for others directly through their work. In this article we introduce the concept of perceived positive work impact to the social entrepreneurship literature to differentiate between objective social impact and individuals’ subjective experiences of work as impactful. With this inductive study we explore how individuals in social enterprises anticipate, perceive, and question their work as impactful and illustrate how these subjective experiences are shaped by processes to create, visualize, maintain, make sense of, and share subjective experiences of work as impactful. In doing so, we challenge taken-for-granted assumptions in social entrepreneurship research and draw attention to a new subjective experience and its significance for talent retention. By investigating the concept of perceived positive work impact in a new research setting where anticipation of positive impact is highly consequential, we extend the current understanding of the concept in OB research.