Social enterprises follow the dual mission of achieving social aims as well as attaining financial sustainability and therefore elude easy categorization into either a non-profit or for-profit organization. Consequently, social enterprises might struggle with their image since external stakeholders (e.g., job applicants and customers) could hold back their support when the enterprise's dual aims seem unusual to them. Despite the importance of the image to gain stakeholder support, factors that determine how individuals perceive social enterprises are underexplored, especially in their early life stages before they have developed reputational capital and brand recognition. Following human value theory, we propose that stakeholders' self-transcendence (“other-oriented”) versus self-enhancement (“self-centered”) values explain how they evaluate social versus commercial enterprises. In a vignette study with 945 individuals, we reveal that social enterprises are more likely to attract self-transcendent individuals whereas individuals with stronger self-enhancement values are less likely to feel attracted to social enterprises. Moreover, our findings show that individuals' values were more strongly related to the image of social enterprises than to the image of commercial enterprises. Thus, external individuals' values lead to stronger and more contrasting reactions regarding social compared to commercial enterprises. The findings indicate that the image of social enterprises is more equivocal and distinct compared to commercial enterprises and therefore might require a different theoretical understanding and careful management as it depends on stakeholders' deep-seated values.

中文翻译：

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年轻社会企业模棱两可的形象——自我导向与他人导向价值观如何影响外部认知

社会企业肩负着实现社会目标和实现财务可持续性的双重使命，因此很难被简单地归类为非营利组织或营利组织。因此，社会企业可能会与他们的形象作斗争，因为当企业的双重目标对他们来说不寻常时，外部利益相关者（例如，求职者和客户）可能会拒绝支持。尽管形象对于获得利益相关者的支持很重要，但决定个人如何看待社会企业的因素尚未得到充分探索，尤其是在他们发展声誉资本和品牌知名度之前的早期阶段。遵循人类价值理论，我们建议利益相关者的 自我超越（“以他人为导向”）与自我提升（“以自我为中心”）的价值观解释了他们如何评估社会企业与商业企业。在一项针对 945 人的案例研究中，我们发现社会企业更有可能吸引自我超越的个人，而具有更强自我提升价值观的个人则不太可能被社会企业吸引。此外，我们的研究结果表明，个人价值观与社会企业形象的相关性比与商业企业形象的相关性更强。因此，与商业企业相比，外部个人的价值观会导致对社会的更强烈和更鲜明的反应。