Engaging active stakeholders in the social enterprise: Evidence of social values as a challenge to organizational identity

The pressure on firms to be socially responsible continuously increases. Social initiatives, however, are not without controversy. Drawing from stakeholder theory, and the main literature on engagement and social enterprise, our research aims to verify the role of the social dimension as a driver of active stakeholder engagement in the social enterprise domain. The research project is based on a survey involving 268 active stakeholders (both internal and external) of 12 Italian SEs. Based on the structural equation modelling technique, our results provide empirical evidence on the antecedents of engagement, distinguishing between job and organization engagement. They confirm the relevance of the social meaningfulness of the work and of adherence to the social values of the organization as pertinent and appropriate engagement drivers.