the ballet studio, I see many of the characteristics that are required in ballet transferring to the executive suite: core strength, ability to change focus quickly, extreme flexibility and range of motion, and knowing where you want to go.” (Jordan, 2018).
In social entrepreneurship, the need to apply methods of agility, adaptability is associated with a number of features inherent in the organizations operating in this area:
• being close to the consumer, social entrepreneurs can adapt their products, services, business models to the expectations and needs of customers more accurately and in a more timely manner;
• idea of the desired result — the “theory of change”, which is the basis of every organization in the field of social entrepreneurship, determines the development vector of the organization, assumed to lead to the positive result, and thus sets the amplitude of change;
• the ability to “be big while staying small” — the social entrepreneurs’ ability to create systemic, large-scale social change, while remaining micro and small in size, determines the great potential of social enterprises to set the vector of impact beyond organizational boundaries.
4. DEVELOPING COOPERATION WITHIN ECOSYSTEMS
Developing cooperation within ecosystems is becoming increasingly important in the business world. At times, competition in the marketplace is often not so much about a variety of value propositions as it is about finding new ways to cooperate and collaborate. As the authors of “In the Ecosystem Economy, What’s Your Strategy?” note, “In many contexts, the firm is no longer an independent strategic actor. Its success depends on collaboration with other forms in a designed ecosystem spanning multiple sectors.” The main reason is the growing influence of ecosystems associated with “three big structural changes in our economy: … an unprecedented rollback of regulations protecting forms, a blurring of the separation between products and services, and technology that is revolutionizing how forms can serve their customers.” The author says, “an ecosystem-focused framework needs to answer five questions: Can you help other forms create value? What role should you play? What should the terms for participation be? Can your organization adapt? How many ecosystems should you manage?” (Jacobides, 2019).
Social enterprises are usually active participants in ecosystems, which increases their resilience in turbulent times, creates the conditions for creating systemic change, and opens up opportunities related to access to necessary resources and competencies. The peculiarities of social enterprises in terms of the development of cooperation within ecosystems are primarily related to the following facts:
• social enterprises are highly dependent on elements of the ecosystem — this, on the one hand, creates a number of constraints, but on the other hand, the mutual dependence within the ecosystem strengthens the connections, makes them special and hard to reproduce;
• the ability to be part of multiple ecosystems increases the “penetration” of social entrepreneurs’ solutions to different levels of public good creation, enhances the uniqueness of the solutions and business models created by social enterprises.
To summarize, I would like to emphasize that the effective tools used today by traditional business organizations are not just relevant for social entrepreneurship, but should be widely demanded and applicable in this area due to the specifics and characteristics of the organizations described above.
RESULTS OF A STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOR OF ORGANIZATIONS WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF SOCIAL IMPACT IN THE VUCA ENVIRONMENT
Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a major challenge not only for the society, but also for organizations and states. Pandemic times are associated with uncertainty, unpredictability of the onset and development of events, and the scale of their impact on all areas of social and economic life of people. Both businesses and nonprofit organizations found themselves in a new paradigm, where decisions about further development had to be made quickly, coherently within the team, without knowing the consequences and the probability of occurrence of anticipated events.
The Impact Hub Moscow Social Innovation Support Center, together with scientists from the Graduate School of Management at St. Petersburg State University and the University of Massachusetts, conducted a study, “Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of the Pandemic,” from June 2020 to January 2021. The goal of the study was to identify the changes that occurred in the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers paid special attention to innovations and strategies that helped organizations survive the crisis.
The majority of Russian social enterprises participating in the study were small businesses (12 %) and microbusinesses (82 %). The overall age of the companies was 5–6 years — when the pandemic started, they were in the development and growth stages.
Social enterprises of all organizational and legal forms took part in the study. All respondent organizations were divided into three types, depending on the main method of income generation: “commercial,” “non-profit,” and “hybrid” organizations. Most of the revenue of “commercial” organizations came from the sale of their goods and services, while “non-profit” organizations derive most of their income from external funding sources (such as grants, donations). Finally, “hybrid” companies combine income from the sale of goods and services with donations and grants.
The study “Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of the Pandemic” helped experts identify several key trends indicating that many social entrepreneurs had not only been able to withstand these difficult times, but also to turn the challenges of the environment into opportunities for their organizations. Thus, during the pandemic, 74 % of “commercial” and 61 % of “hybrid” companies managed not only to maintain but also increase their sales revenues.
Figure 1. Geographic coverage of social enterprises(%)
The pandemic impacted the geographic expansion of organizations, as reported by 50 % of the respondents. The majority of respondents said their growth was influenced by the online work format (78 % of the respondents of those who answered “yes” to the question — “Has your business experienced a geographic expansion?”) (See Figure 1).
The pandemic generally increased the number of innovations being introduced. 53 % of the social entrepreneurs presented products that were groundbreaking for their companies and for the market as a whole.
