Paradoxical founders’ identity and its impact on social venture performance
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the structure of founders’ hybrid personal identities and their relationship to social venture performance. The authors hypothesize that founders experience the tension between the social and commercial goals of their venture as a paradox rooted in their personal values.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors surveyed 112 social enterprise founders in Chile and used structural equation modeling to test hypotheses about the relationship between self-transcendent values (i.e. promotion of others’ welfare and care for nature) and self-enhancement values (i.e. pursuing own interests and power over others) on a multidimensional scale of social venture performance.
Findings
Self-transcendence and self-enhancement are distinct yet interrelated values that coexist within social venture founders (i.e. they constitute a paradox). Self-transcendence values negatively moderate the positive relationship between self-enhancement values and social venture performance.
Practical implications
Mere benevolence is insufficient for effective social venturing; success depends on the founder’s self-enhancement values or their “drive” to succeed. Founder values can thus inform organizational design choices (e.g. tasks, team composition, structures and processes) and guide public and private investment decisions.
Originality/value
This research empirically assesses the structure of hybrid personal identities, uncovering how the concurrent action of self-transcendence and self-enhancement values influences social venture performance. The authors challenge the belief that balancing social and commercial goals benefits social venture performance. Best-performing ventures are those whose founder’s exhibit high self-enhancement and low self-transcendence values.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express our deepest gratitude to Professor Tom Lumpkin for his invaluable contributions to this research. His insightful suggestions and careful readings of this manuscript significantly enriched our study. The authors also want to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly guided the improvement of this article.
Funding: This research project received public funding from the Chilean Research and Development Agency (ANID), FONDECYT Grant Number 11230393.
Citation
Moura-Romero, C., Rojas-Córdova, C. and Pertuze, J.A. (2024), "Paradoxical founders’ identity and its impact on social venture performance", Social Enterprise Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-10-2023-0119
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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