Multi-stakeholder governance. A social enterprise case study

The scope of this paper is to highlight the features of multi-stakeholdership in the presence of contract incompleteness, and to provide an illustration with a focus on not-for profit social enterprises. Using case study analysis, we observe how the governance of a social enterprise has evolved to reflect changes in community needs. We show that the progressive inclusion of emerging organisations to achieve the much advocated balance of interests, as opposed to contractual coordination. The findings highlight that multi-stakeholdership diffused co-operative attitude with which founders and managers created a network of patrons, who give voice and answers to specific social needs.The paper then builds on these findings to elaborate on the factors that affect the survival of the social enterprise. Our major conclusion in this respect is that, over time, the internalization of relevant contractual effects within organizational boundaries can guarantee economic sustainability and the production of broad societal value.