TY - JOUR
T1 - The potentials and perils of prosocial power
T2 - Transnational social entrepreneurship dynamics in vulnerable social spaces
AU - Koehne, Florian
AU - Woodward, Richard
AU - Honig, Benson
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank our editor, Sophie Bacq, and three anonymous reviewers for their very insightful and constructive feedback. We are also most appreciative for comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of the paper by participants of the 5th Annual Paper Development Workshop at The University of Edinburgh (2018), the 78th Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Chicago (2018), the 16th Social Entrepreneurship Conference at Indiana University in Bloomington (2019), and the virtual Academy of Management Specialized Conference on Advancing Management Research in Latin America (2020). All errors remain ours.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s)
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Social entrepreneurs can be powerful change agents for alleviating the suffering of the disadvantaged. However, their prosocial motivation and behavior frequently result in detrimental impacts on those they intend to support, especially when their operations span different socio-spatial contexts. We conducted a multiple comparative case study among 12 transnational social entrepreneurs of foreign, domestic non-indigenous, and local indigenous origin, who are seeking to improve the livelihoods of indigenous communities in rural Ecuador. We introduce the concept of prosocial power to social entrepreneurship research and demonstrate how it can work as a double-edged sword in the hands of transnationally embedded social entrepreneurs who operate in vulnerable places. Context-bound variations in social distance, bi-directional learning, reflexive impact measurement, and socio-spatial dominance were identified as being decisive for prosocial power to lead to positive or negative impacts on disadvantaged others.
AB - Social entrepreneurs can be powerful change agents for alleviating the suffering of the disadvantaged. However, their prosocial motivation and behavior frequently result in detrimental impacts on those they intend to support, especially when their operations span different socio-spatial contexts. We conducted a multiple comparative case study among 12 transnational social entrepreneurs of foreign, domestic non-indigenous, and local indigenous origin, who are seeking to improve the livelihoods of indigenous communities in rural Ecuador. We introduce the concept of prosocial power to social entrepreneurship research and demonstrate how it can work as a double-edged sword in the hands of transnationally embedded social entrepreneurs who operate in vulnerable places. Context-bound variations in social distance, bi-directional learning, reflexive impact measurement, and socio-spatial dominance were identified as being decisive for prosocial power to lead to positive or negative impacts on disadvantaged others.
KW - prosocial organizing
KW - prosocial power
KW - social entrepreneurship
KW - transnational entrepreneurship
KW - indigenous communities
U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2022.106206
DO - 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2022.106206
M3 - Article
SN - 0883-9026
VL - 37
JO - Journal of Business Venturing
JF - Journal of Business Venturing
IS - 4
M1 - 106206
ER -