Breaking Down the Strategic Marketing: Three Approaches for Compensatory or Transformative Social Enterprises

Abstract

Due to the relevance of social enterprises on social value creation, the marketing field is increasing its attention to these organizations. However, there seems to be no consensus in the literature on how strategic marketing can improve the performance of social enterprises. Face this, we propose the decomposition of strategic marketing into three approaches: commercial, social, and societal, which constitutes a theoretical contribution to the marketing field. Then, we develop a conceptual model that demonstrates how these strategic marketing approaches relate to the compensatory or trans-formative approaches of social entrepreneurship to improve social enterprise performance. Specifically, we argue that social enterprises can have three types of performance: commercial, social, and societal, and each one can be maximized by its corresponding strategic marketing approach. Such relations can leverage social impact, which we conceptualize as compensatory or trans-formative. Regarding practical implications, the model contributes to the possible improvement of strategic marketing decision by marketers and entrepreneurs in social entrepreneurship.