Disclosing everyday practices constituting social entrepreneuring – a case of necessity effectuation

Abstract

Entrepreneurship scholars have become increasingly aware of the need to recognize situated and temporary practices as the core of organizing in general, and of entrepreneuring as a processual phenomenon in particular. Close-up and longitudinal empirical inquiry into a Swedish work-integrating social enterprise, and its everyday procedures, uncovered several core process practices. The transformation of this enterprise into a national franchisor constructed further processual practices. These practices are comparable with the principles constituting the logic of effectuation. The findings tell that a different kind of effectuation logic rules in social enterprises, as much as the task is not profit-making but supporting people with social needs. The notion of ‘necessity effectuation’ is thus introduced to denote this logic. The empirical research in the social enterprise also reveals structural practices, here interpreted as dualities, that frame the processual practices. In social entrepreneuring a weaving metaphor, with the structural practices as the warp and the processual ones as the weft elements, thus appears as appropriate.

Keywords:

• Social entrepreneuring
• practice theory
• opportunity/necessity effectuation
• weaving metaphor
• interactive research

Notes

1. These findings were originally reported in Johannisson (2012).

2. The Macken story is also told in Johannisson, Alpenberg, and Strandberg (2016).

3. Johannisson, Alpenberg, and Strandberg (2016) reports yet another practice – Urgency for financial viability – but here the focus is on organisational issues.