The Demise of a Rising Social Enterprise for Persons With Disabilities: The Ethics and the Uncertainty of Pure Effectual Logic When Scaling Up

Bruce Martin (), Lucia Walsh, Andrew Keating and Susi Geiger
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Bruce Martin: Thompson Rivers University
Lucia Walsh: Technological University Dublin
Andrew Keating: University College Dublin
Susi Geiger: University College Dublin

Journal of Business Ethics, 2024, vol. 191, issue 1, No 6, 107-130

Abstract: Abstract How does a social enterprise pursue its ethical mandate of social impact growth while navigating the perils of the most vulnerable stage in a venture’s life—scaling up? We observe a small inclusivity social enterprise attempting to scale up rapidly to create equality for people with disabilities throughout the world. Our embedded, ethnographic study is terminated with the venture’s unfortunate demise after their dramatic effort to scale up failed. By examining scaling decision-making and conflicts around creation reasoning longitudinally, our study identifies over-use of effectual logic—a creation reasoning type considered more ethical and more appropriate for high-innovativeness contexts than causal logic—as a major factor in the venture’s failure. From this insight, we extend the parameters of effectuation theory to scaling up and dimensionalize its ethical implications. Guidance for social entrepreneurs to scale up successfully while maintaining ethical integrity is also provided.

Keywords: Inclusivity; Scaling; Social enterprise; Social innovation; Persons with disabilities; Effectuation; Effectual logic; Causal logic; Creation reasoning; Organizational failure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05390-4

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