Exploring the Influence of Work Integration Social Enterprises on Consumers through Differentiated Customer Value Proposition

Saki Morita, Keiji Jindo () and Petros Maliotis
Additional contact information
Saki Morita: International Agribusiness and Trade, Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, 6880 GB Velp, The Netherlands
Keiji Jindo: Agrosystems Research, Wageningen University & Research, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Petros Maliotis: International Agribusiness and Trade, Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, 6880 GB Velp, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: In the endeavour towards an inclusive society, work integration social enterprises (WISEs) play an important role in workplaces and labour market. Customers of WISEs are an underexplored field, and thus, this study looked at the influence of WISEs on customers using the concept of customer value. It deployed qualitative and quantitative study of two cases of WISEs in the Dutch agriculture and food industry. Market basket analysis was conducted to find interactions between customer characteristics and customer values. The results of our study show that taste as a functional value is a minimum requirement as well as a unique selling proposition for these two cases. The fact that they are a WISE was presented at different explicitness levels to customers: sometimes with a direct statement, other times with a phrase or visual hinting at this social aspect. Customers not always received this message or misinterpreted it as the WISEs intended. The results also indicate that products from these two cases are not associated with lower quality despite findings by earlier studies on socially oriented organisations. However, it is yet to be explored how the general Dutch population perceives the products and services of WISEs.

Keywords: work integration social enterprise; social firm; customer value; value proposition; consumer behaviour; ethical consumption; market basket analysis; case study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/5630/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/7/5630/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:7:p:5630-:d:1105227

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().