The stories of social entrepreneurship: Narrative discourse and social enterprise resource acquisition

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon of increasing significance. A key challenge for social ventures is resource acquisition. However, how social entrepreneurs gather the resources necessary to grow their organizations is not clear. The focus of this study is how narratives are used to acquire social venture resources. This topic is examined using a multi-study, inductive, theory-building design based on 121 interviews, observation, and archival data. In Study 1, I interview 75 entrepreneurs, investors, and ancillary participants in the social enterprise sector. In Study 2, I construct case studies of eight technology-focused social ventures. Evidence from this study is used to construct a framework explaining how differences in entrepreneurs’ narrative tactics and characteristics are associated with differences in their resource acquisition success. Specifically, from Study 1 I develop a typology of social enterprise narratives, identify three narrative-types (personal, social-good, and business), and show that they possess unique elements. Evidence from Study 2 suggests that the three narrative-types serve as the building blocks for communication with external stakeholders. These findings contribute to three literatures that formed the basis of the study – social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial resource acquisition, and organizational narrative theory – and have implications for work on competing organizational logics. They also produce several practical implications for social entrepreneurs.

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