Stakeholder Engagement in the Social Entrepreneurship Process: Identity, Governance and Legitimacy

This paper explores how stakeholder expectations are managed through the social entrepreneurship process of opportunity construction, evaluation and pursuit. Building on an in-depth case study, a model of stakeholder engagement through identity, governance and legitimacy is presented. Stakeholders are managed by an identity constructed through an integration of the organization's multiple identities to form a meta-identity. Governance is important in the management of stakeholders in order to be entrepreneurial while being accountable. Stakeholders support the organization based on legitimacy that is gained through creating stakeholder value and by conforming to existing social structures as well as creating new operating models, practices and ideas.