How Do Social Ventures Select New Customers and Contracts? Evaluation Criteria and the Role of Social Entrepreneurial Identity

Block, Joern; Bloecher, Annette; Greß, Patrick; HIRSCHMANN, Mirko

doi:10.1080/19420676.2025.2519743

Article (Scientific journals)

How Do Social Ventures Select New Customers and Contracts? Evaluation Criteria and the Role of Social Entrepreneurial Identity

Block, Joern; Bloecher, Annette; Greß, Patrick et al.

2025 • In Journal of Social Entrepreneurship

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https://hdl.handle.net/10993/65308

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10.1080/19420676.2025.2519743

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Keywords :

Social ventures; new customers; selection criteria; social identity; conjoint analysis

Abstract :

[en] To grow their business, social ventures in B2B and B2G contexts must frequently evaluate the attractiveness of new customers and contracts. But what criteria guide these evaluations, and how do they differ based on the social identity of the decision maker? We investigate this research question using a conjoint analysis com- prising 888 decisions by 111 social entrepreneurs. Our results show that social impact and value alignment with the customer seem to matter more than financial impact and that social entrepreneurs’ identities shape these criteria. Our study contributes to research on the evaluation of new customers and contracts by social ventures.

Disciplines :

General management, entrepreneurship & organizational theory

Author, co-author :

Block, Joern

Bloecher, Annette

Greß, Patrick

HIRSCHMANN, Mirko ; University of Luxembourg > Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SNT) > Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and New Technology (EINT)

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

How Do Social Ventures Select New Customers and Contracts? Evaluation Criteria and the Role of Social Entrepreneurial Identity

Publication date :

June 2025

Journal title :

Journal of Social Entrepreneurship

ISSN :

1942-0676

eISSN :

1942-0684

Publisher :

Taylor & Francis, United Kingdom

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2025.2519743

Available on ORBilu :

since 03 July 2025

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