How Social Start-ups Start Up: A Relational Approach to Civic Emergence

• In Event: Sociology of Development Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Development & Organizations

Abstract

Organizational and political sociologists have long studied the emergence of civic organizations through two dominant perspectives: demand-side theories arguing that they fill gaps left by government and market failures, and supply-side theories emphasizing resource dependence and entrepreneurs. In contrast, this article advances a networked theory of civic emergence, contending that new organizations emerge not to plug gaps or respond to resources but through interactions with other field actors. It draws on the case of a developing country’s set of social start-ups—i.e., novel nonprofit or social enterprise ventures founded to meet social challenges—as they navigate transnational influences, elite networks, and centralized state actors. In this context, I show how social connections were key in fostering not just economic capital but also intellectual, human, and symbolic capital—all important factors in the advent of new organizations. Rather than serving as key levers, demand-side rationales functioned as retrospective justification while supply-side forces were negotiated for survival. In discussing the micro-processes of how network conditions materialize new social ventures, this article contributes to the sociology of organizations, entrepreneurship, and development.

Author

• Jose Eos Trinidad, University of California-Berkeley