Doing Well by Doing Good and the Rhetorical Accomplishment of Social Enterprise

• In Event: 153 - Regular Session. Organizations: Institutional Change & Entrepreneurship

Abstract

One of the most distinctive features of contemporary social life is the penetration of market logics and practices into sundry areas of social life. This article considers the steady march of market logics into the provision of social welfare and asks how they are made compatible. To understand better the proliferation of market logics, I examine the social enterprise organization as a site where the logic of the market interfaces directly with the logic of social welfare. The empirical contributions of this article are to show that the institutional logics perspective provides a useful language for assessing the spread of market logics and to demonstrate how rhetoric, or persuasive language, is instrumental in making the market logic compatible with the logic of social welfare. The analysis opens a door to the critique that while rhetoric smooths over inconsistencies between the two logics, it also makes justifiable a broad range of activities, including those that would seem at odds with the stated purpose of the social enterprise movement. To use a metaphor, the rhetoric that makes social enterprise possible is a trojan horse that brings with it broad justifications that ultimately favor the market over social welfare. The contribution to theory is to identify two specific rhetorical strategies that entrepreneurs use to reconcile competing logics. The data suggest these strategies may be transferable to other settings, with the same questionable outcomes.

Author

• Curtis D. Child, Brigham Young University