The emergence of social enterprises and their place in the new organizational landscape

Mair, J. and Noboa, E.  2003. IESE Paper D-523.

IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Barcelona.

Abstract

Recent dynamics in the social and economic environment have facilitated the emergence of new-hybrid-organizational forms, a phenomenon that has been frequently associated with the blurring of boundaries among the for-profit, public and nonprofit sectors. Focusing on social enterprises, a particular type of hybrid organizations emerging in the nonprofit sector, this paper suggests that the appearance of hybrid organizational forms triggers behavioral changes at the micro-the organizational-level, but hardly affects sector boundaries. The paper offers a fresh conceptualization of social enterprises, and furthermore presents an original way to classify traditional and new organizational forms according to economic, public and social authority. The new organizational landscape is illustrated.