[séminaire CREM] Crowdfunding social ventures: Who will reward (or punish) hybridity?

Abstract:
Social ventures are standard examples of hybrid organizations. By building on and integrating goal-based and causal-model approaches, two emergent streams of categorization theory, we argue that funders may pursue different goals when deciding whether or not to support a social enterprise, and that funders who are primarily motivated by social or financial goals will make different inferences about how a higher level of hybridity will make a social enterprise more or less likely to achieve the outcomes they expect. Using interviews and survey data on crowdfunding platforms, we found a slightly positive relationship between hybridity and funding. Consistent with our theory, this effect is driven entirely by funders who are primarily seeking a financial return from their investment. The pursuit of social impact goals negatively moderates the effect of hybridity on the decision to fund the social venture. Our study thus offers new insight into the relationship between goal-based and causal-model approaches to categorization, and how the interplay between the two can create variance in the appeal of hybrid social ventures.
Co-écrit avec Zineb AOUNI (EM Lyon business school), Marek HUDON (ULB) et Tyler WRY (Wharton Business School)