Doing Good and Selling Goods: Hybrid Commodities in the Social Enterprise Ecosystem

Abstract

This paper explores a network of organizations and their perspectives on the social enterprise commodity. Based on ethnographic research, I present the case of recycled bags sold in the city centre of Vienna (Austria) by three organizations, including a work integration social enterprise. By reviewing two different strands in the organizational studies literature that both employ biological notions to theorize (social) enterprising, I argue that opposing “hybridity” to “ecosystems” is a suitable way to assess two different research agendas in that field. While I subscribe to the ecosystem focus - seeing organizations as a function of the social environment - I make the case for the importance of research into “hybrid commodities” as a way to explore larger issues concerning social enterprise scholarship, such as mission drift, hidden agendas or organizational identity work.