The ‘protective function’ of social enterprises: understanding the renewal of multiple sets of motivations

Abstract

We study the problem of the renewal of workers’ intrinsic and pro-social motivations in democratic work settings, as found in Italian social enterprises, organizations in the social economy that deliver social and welfare services. Building upon institutional, system, and management theory we hypothesize that social enterprises value and protect pro-social motivations as crucial resources. Specifically, hypothesis-testing examines the effect of the work relational context and of job satisfaction on the renewal of self-esteem intrinsic motivations and pro-social motivations. Our sample includes 320 social enterprises matched with 4134 paid workers. The results of categorical principal components analysis, OLS regression and structural equation modelling show that worker wellbeing (substantive and formal satisfaction) mediates the relation between the relational context (collaborative teamwork and fairness, both procedural and interactional) and the renewal of self-esteem and pro-social motivations.

KEYWORDS:

• Social enterprises
• collaborative teamwork
• fairness
• job satisfaction
• work motivations

JEL Classification codes:

• I31
• J28
• L31
• M54

Acknowledgments

This work is part of EURICSE (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises) project ‘Survey on Italian Social Cooperatives’ (SISC/ICSI survey). We wish to thank Carlo Borzaga, principal investigator. Special thanks to Maurizio Carpita, Marica Manisera and Enrico Rettore for methodological development and advice, to Sara Depedri and Elena Poli for questionnaire and data handling. We are grateful to Leonardo Becchetti and Jerry Hallier for comments, suggestions and methodological advice. Thanks in particular to Avner Ben-Ner, Salvatore Villani, Olivier Brolis, Vincent Angel, and Marthe Nyssen and to the other participants at the two events in which the paper was presented: (i) CIRIEC (International Center of Research and Information on the Public, Social and Cooperative Economy) conference in Lisbon in July 2015; (ii) CIRTES (Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche Travail, État et Société) workshop ‘Social Production of Job (In)security in the Post-industrial Society’ at the Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve in September 2015.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There are two types of SCs: Type A delivers social services, while Type B is conceived for work integration of hard-to-employ workers. The latter are active in traditional industrial or service sectors and must employ no less than 30% of disadvantaged workers (the physically and mentally disabled, ex-drug addicted and convicted, etc.).

2 Not included in this paper, organizational practices informed by weaker relational content appear not to influence the renewal of motivations. For example, on-the-job task autonomy was initially included in the analysis and then discarded because it did not appear to be correlated with the renewal of motivations.

3 Herzberg refers to motivation as being an ‘internal engine’ whose benefits ‘show up over a long period of time’ (Herzberg, 1968/1987, p. 14). Cr. Also Pinder (1998, p. 11): ‘Work motivation is a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual’s being, to initiate work-related behavior and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration’.

4 Cf. also Herzberg et al. (1959) on job enrichment.

5 All Beta (standardized) coefficients are available from the authors upon request.

Additional information

Funding

The survey on which the empirical analysis is based was carried out between March 2004 and February 2008 in Italy by five research units at the Universities of Brescia, Milan, Naples, Reggio Calabria and Trento. The research was supported by: (1) a grant of the Italian Ministry for University and Scientific Research based on the national research project (PRIN) titled: ‘The Economic Role of Nonprofit Organizations: New Theoretical Developments and Empirical Tests’; (2) by a grant of the Foundation of the Saving Bank of the Lombard Provinces (Ca.Ri.P.Lo. Foundation); (3) by the personnel at EURICSE in Trento.

Notes on contributors

Ermanno C. Tortia

Ermanno C. Tortia research focuses on the theory of the firm, business economics, organizational behavior and human resource management as applied to cooperative and social enterprises, and non-profit organizations in third sector research. He has co-authored studies in: (i) happiness economics, organizational justice, worker motivations, and complex sets of organizational practices; (ii) the institutionalist theory of social economy organizations.

Silvia Sacchetti

Silvia Sacchetti research interests are in the democratic development of economies through production governance, mobilization of social capital and creativity, within the governance of networks, cooperative firms, and social enterprises, with recent applications to the study of welfare services.

Vladislav Valentinov

Vladislav Valentinov main research interests revolve around span of institutional economics, rural development, and systems theory, especially as applied to the third sector, cooperative enterprises and environmental sustainability. He has especially focused on internal organization, governance and motivational drives in non-profit enterprises.