Relationships Between Social Entrepreneurial Orientation and Social Work Management Competencies in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations

ABSTRACT

Social work managers face multiple challenges when seeking to create organizational environments that support community social outcomes. This study aims to provide a model of human services organizational management that includes social entrepreneurial orientation (SEO), and employs a multivariate regression analysis to identify relationships between SEO and social work management competencies using a nationally representative sample of nonprofits in Canada. Significant relationships were found between the SEO Scale (including social innovation, proactivity, risk-taking, and market engagement) and the Social Work Management Competencies Scale (including executive leadership, resource management, strategic management, and community collaboration). Further, organizational health significantly predicted resource management and strategic management, while revenue level significantly negatively predicted executive leadership. Multiple implications for findings are provided and a discussion is focused on applications for social work management.

PRACTICE POINTS

• The enhancement of socially entrepreneurial factors within the nonprofit organization directly supports management competency development. As such, SEO (including social innovation, risk-taking, proactivity, and market engagement) provides a set of domains that can be used to initiate strong management practice.

• Scales for SEO and social work management competencies can be utilized as assessment and evaluation tools by providing management with data using multi-dimensional measures, capturing the varied ways in which the organization may improve related factors while identifying areas of strength.

• Although all areas relating to SEO are important contributors of social work management as independent factors, the most powerful results are observed when the entire scale is used as a whole. Practitioners may consider how this concept can be implemented wholly, or focus on the most prevalent predictors (i.e. social innovation and proactivity).

KEYWORDS:

• Social entrepreneurial orientation
• social entrepreneurship
• social work
• social work management

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Ethical declaration

The research reported in this manuscript was given full consideration and approval by the University of Toronto Health Science Ethics Review Board (protocol #40494).

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously supporting by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada.