Marketing Strategy In Social Enterprise Organizations in Canada: A Structured Abstract
Traditionally, the non-profit and charitable sector has fulfilled the role of addressing inadequacies in markets with respect to social needs. While the number of organizations in this sector has increased in recent decades (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-S
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anizational orientation, but it is still not clear how SEs will resolve tensions related to the various stakeholders. For example, how do SEs choose between the need to be profitable and the desire to execute their social mission? The concept of utilizing marketing in not-for-profit organizations has a long history (Kotler & Levy 1969). Current research into marketing in not-for-profit organizations suggests that while marketing is viewed in a positive light in many not-for-profits (Pope, Isely, and Asamoa-Tutu 2009), it may still be considered undesirable by some members of that sector. Supporting earlier work in the field of marketing in not-for-profit organizations, such as Andreasen and Kotler (2003), a recent paper by Dolnicar and Lazareski (2009) comparing non-profit organizations in the U.K., the U.S.A. and Australia found that not-forprofit managers have not yet developed strong knowledge and skills concerning the marketing approach. The results of their research reveal that not-for-profit managers view the most important marketing activities as being promotional in nature. Very few of the managers acknowledged the importance of activities such as market research and strategic marketing. Dolnicar and Lazareski (2009) also report that non-profit organizations typically still have an organization rather than a customer centric mindset. Recently, Pope, Isely and Asomoa-Totu (2009) showed that growth in the nonprofit sector has been accompanied by greater support and interest from that sector concerning the importance of marketing. However, they also show (in support of others such as Andreasen & Kotler 2003; Dolnicar & Lazareski 2009), that while nonprofit managers see marketing as important, they do not use key marketing approaches to a great degree (for example, while a majority the managers in the study viewed marketing as important, more than eighty percent failed to define target markets). METHODOLOGY We use an inductive, grounded theory methodology inspired by the works of Charmaz (2006) and Glaser & Strauss (1967). Because there is a dearth of research with respect to marketing in SEs, it is both appropriate and necessary to undertake qualitative research in order to build understanding of this phenomenon and to begin to develop theory in the area. Grounded theory consists of systematic “guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data to construct theories ‘grounded’ in the data themselves” (Charmaz 2006, p. 2). We conducted a comparative study of fifteen cases of SEs. The cases we studied are located in Canada. No formal legal designation and no comprehensive sampling frames exist for SEs in Canada. In order to draw a sample for study, the research team created a database consisting of 46 SEs in the geographical proximity of the team’s home university. This database was constructed by amalgamating existing databases known to the researchers and by searching the Internet for enterprises that met the definitional criteria. To be included in the database, an enterprise had to (a) demonstrate an und
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