How Social Entrepreneurs can Influence their Employees' Commitment

ABSTRACT

Social entrepreneurship is an outstanding phenomenon that links entrepreneurship, social change, and economic development, which increasingly attracts the attention from scholars and policy makers alike. As in any other new venture, including social enterprises, motivated employees and the effect of their teamwork is considered the best way to deliver superior performance in highly competitive, global business environments. Therefore, employees' performance and their commitment become critical factors in the performance of social entrepreneurship. The aim of this article is to, first, explain how social entrepreneurs reinforce employees' commitment by developing some organizational skills (communication, teamwork, delegation, active listening, and attitude). Second, the study carries out a comparative analysis using two types of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA): the crisp set analysis (csQCA) based on the use of dichotomous variables (values 0 and 1); and the fuzzy set analysis (fsQCA) that allows scaling scores of membership intervals between 0 and 1. The sample involved consists of 46 Spanish social entrepreneurs who started-up their companies between 2012 and 2015 and answered a 40 items questionnaire between June and September 2015. After the methodological comparison, the findings reveal that social entrepreneurs can influence employees' commitment through developing the skills of communication, teamwork, delegation, active listening, and attitude. This article's main contribution is setting up the analysis of commitment as a particularly relevant issue in social enterprises due to their social impact.

KEYWORDS:

• commitment
• csQCA
• fsQCA
• qualitative comparative analysis
• social entrepreneurship