Hybrid Organizations and Social Innovation in Europe: an Enabling Ecosystem

The goal of the present work is to explore characteristics of hybrid organizations that have developed across 11 European countries and contribute to the understanding of the features of an enabling ecosystem for this kind of organizations. To answer our research question on the main features of an enabling ecosystem for hybrid organizations in Europe we opted for a mixed methodology. We recurred to a convergent parallel mixed methods design, which entails the integrated collection of quantitative and qualitative data and enables researchers to offset the weaknesses of both quantitative and qualitative research by capitalizing on the strengths of both. In the light of our research aim, we believe the combination of qualitative case studies and a quantitative survey was the most suitable approach for investigating the complexities of the organizations under study. This is especially true if we consider that 837 social entrepreneurs from 11 European countries (in alphabetical order: Albania, Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Scotland and The Netherlands) have been involved in our research activities. Among the potential factors we examined, scarce funding opportunities, troublesome relations with national bureaucracies, and poor marketing skills emerged in all included countries as crucial factors constraining the development of SEs (Social enterprises). Moreover, other factors, such as inadequate managerial skills or insufficient stakeholder involvement, can represent important hindering elements. In the dynamic sense, as from our research, hybrid organizations face numerous challenges, but their relative importance changes through their life cycle. Our research provides an insight into the complex experiences of European social entrepreneurship, and it may represent a starting point for reasoning on the main steps, in terms of management and policies, that national and European stakeholders should take to define a flourishing inclusive ecosystem for social enterprises and other bottom-up entrepreneurial activities.