Unintended consequences of scaling social impact in social enterprises

What is it about?

Ecosystem growth strategy is an increasingly popular strategy to scale social impact in social enterprises. However, the existing literature is largely biased towards the success stories of this scaling strategy. Countering this "success bias", this paper presents a framework describing when and how ecosystem growth strategy can create unintended consequences in social enterprises.

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Why is it important?

Scaling social impact through ecosystem growth strategy is not without its side effects. Furthermore, ecosystem growth strategy can produce different results in different contexts. Therefore, while undertaking their scholarly and practice endeavours (e.g., researching, teaching, advising, and policymaking) around scaling social impact in SEs, scholars and practitioners need to pay due attention to potential unintended consequences of ecosystem growth strategy in addition to its intended consequences, as well as local contexts and realities of interest.

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