How practitioners and academics perceive performance of social enterprise? A qualitative study

Abstract

The growing importance of social enterprises further raises the question of how to monitor effectively the performance of these organisations pursuing multiple goals. Yet, both academic and practitioners communities have to conciliate their understanding of performance to design adequate tools matching strong theoretical foundation to practical realities. This paper aims at outlining what performance is to academics and practitioners as well as scrutinizing the influence of governance on performance perception. Results obtained from a field-based study conducted with three Belgian social enterprises are compared to the theoretical perspective of academics extracted from an in-depth review of the existing literature. The findings suggest that practitioners rather comprehend performance as their economic results sustaining their social activities rather than a balanced mix of various dimensions so academics do. It is further highlighted that the age, the size and the composition of the board influences performance understanding and objective concerns.