Do Gooders versus Good Dooers: An Empirical Examination of Growth versus Efficiency in Social Entrepreneurship

Constrained by the regulatory requirements of a nonprofit, researchers have been tempted to posit that commercial ventures and nonprofit social ventures share different interpretations of the contribution of growth and profit to success measures. Social ventures must nonetheless tackle sustainability or they too risk marketplace failure. Robb-Post et al (2010) posited that a model of sustainable contributive advantage can explain the social value creation mechanism beyond simple economic profit. This study examines the concepts of growth and profit in the context of social ventures by using several variables that define “growth” and “efficiency” measures within social ventures in order to test hypotheses regarding their relationships and ability to achieve success.