Do social enterprises walk the talk? Assessing microfinance performances with mission statements

Roy Mersland, Samuel Anokye Nyarko and Ariane Szafarz

Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2019, vol. 11, issue C, -

Abstract: We study mission drift in social enterprises by examining whether these organizations stick to the actual mission enshrined in their mission statements. We use data from microfinance organizations (MFOs), a homogeneous group of social enterprises which have been scrutinized—and sometimes criticized—for mission drift. We focus on three publicly recognized and non-mutually-exclusive microfinance social missions identified by previous studies: poverty alleviation, women's empowerment, and rural financial inclusion. Based on hand-collected data from 199 MFOs worldwide, our results suggest strong coherence between social missions and actual practices. Hence, we argue that, with respect to MFOs' own stated social missions, mission drift is no serious concern. The trustworthiness of social mission statements makes them suitable evaluation tools for social enterprises.

Keywords: Mission statement; Mission drift; Microfinance; Social enterprise; Content analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 G23 G28 G32 L21 O50 P36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobuve:v:11:y:2019:i:c:6

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2019.e00117

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