RT Article
T1 The demise of a rising social enterprise for persons with disabilities: the ethics and the uncertainty of pure effectual logic when scaling up
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 191
IS 1
SP 107
OP 130
A1 Martin, Bruce
A1 Walsh, Lucia
A1 Keating, Andrew
A1 Geiger, Susi
A2 Walsh, Lucia
A2 Keating, Andrew
A2 Geiger, Susi
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1891332317
AB How does a social enterprise pursue its ethical mandate of social impact growth while navigating the perils of the most vulnerable stage in a venture's life - scaling up? We observe a small inclusivity social enterprise attempting to scale up rapidly to create equality for people with disabilities throughout the world. Our embedded, ethnographic study is terminated with the venture's unfortunate demise after their dramatic effort to scale up failed. By examining scaling decision-making and conflicts around creation reasoning longitudinally, our study identifies over-use of effectual logic - a creation reasoning type considered more ethical and more appropriate for high-innovativeness contexts than causal logic - as a major factor in the venture's failure. From this insight, we extend the parameters of effectuation theory to scaling up and dimensionalize its ethical implications. Guidance for social entrepreneurs to scale up successfully while maintaining ethical integrity is also provided.
K1 Causal logic
K1 Creation reasoning
K1 Effectual logic
K1 Effectuation
K1 Inclusivity
K1 Organizational failure
K1 Persons with disabilities
K1 Scaling
K1 Social Enterprise
K1 Social innovation
K1 Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
DO 10.1007/s10551-023-05390-4