The equivocal image of young social enterprises—How self‐ versus other‐oriented values influence external perceptions

Yahyaoui, Yasmine et al. Article — Published Version The equivocal image of young social enterprises—How self‐ versus other‐oriented values influence external perceptions Nonprofit Management and Leadership Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Yahyaoui, Yasmine et al. (2023) : The equivocal image of young social enterprises —How self‐ versus other‐oriented values influence external perceptions, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, ISSN 1542-7854, Wiley Periodicals, Inc., Hoboken, USA, Vol. 33, Iss. 4, pp. 755-781, https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21552 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/288026 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RESEARCH ARTICLE The equivocal image of young social enterprises—How selfversus other-oriented values influence external perceptions Yasmine Yahyaoui 1 | Eva A. Jakob 1 | Holger Steinmetz 2 | Marius C. Wehner 3 | Rodrigo Isidor 1 | Rüdiger Kabst 4 1 University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany 2 Trier University, Trier, Germany 3 Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany 4 Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany Correspondence Yasmine Yahyaoui and Eva A. Jakob, Faculty of Law and Economics, Chair of Business Administration XX— Entrepreneurial Behavior, Zapf 1, University of Bayreuth, Universitätsstraße 30, 95447 Bayreuth, Germany. Email: yasmine.yahyaoui@uni-bayreuth. de;[email protected] Abstract 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. Received: 14 February 2022 Revised: 21 December 2022 Accepted: 22 December 2022 DOI: 10.1002/nml.21552 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2023 The Authors. Nonprofit Management & Leadership published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2023;33:755–781. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml 755 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. KEYWORDS enterprise image, external perceptions, human value theory, self-enhancement, self-transcendence, social enterprises 1|INTRODUCTION By harnessing market-based methods to solve social issues, social enterprises have received great attention from researchers and practitioners (Asarkaya & Keles Taysir, 2019; Heinze et al., 2016; Ip et al., 2021; Saebi et al., 2019). According to the literature, young social enterprises—defined as social enterprises younger than 12 years old (Hannan et al., 1996; Siqueira et al., 2018)—often face legitimacy issues related to their image since they follow dual objectives which are simultaneously profit and non-profit oriented (Costanzo et al., 2014; Ebrahim et al., 2014; Vedula et al., 2022). An enterprise image is defined as the overall external impression, set of beliefs, feelings, and associations of the enterprise (Riordan et al., 1997; Zhu & Chang, 2013). This image is vital for any enterprise as it represents the basis for any assessment and evaluation of its actions and accomplishments (Barnett et al., 2006; Foroudi et al., 2020; Villena Manzanares, 2019). Young enterprises are particularly dependent on a positive image as it can grant legitimacy to the enterprise that helps launch and grow the business by attracting customers, investors, and employees (Bublitz et al., 2018; Lin-Hi et al., 2020; Younger & Fisher, 2020). As young social enterprises straddle the binary organizational categories of nonprofit or for-profit, individuals often find it hard to grasp the concept of what a young social enterprise entails, and hence may question their legitimacy (Austin et al., 2006; Barraket et al., 2016; Dart, 2004; Grieco, 2018). Although the image is critical and challenging for a young social enterprise's success (Dacin et al., 2011; Goldberg et al., 2003; Riordan et al., 1997; Spear, 2006), a systematic understanding of its antecedents is still limited. While some research has been conducted on how young social enterprises use their image to attract individuals, such as customers in local communities and investors (e.g., Ruebottom, 2013; Smith et al., 2010; Teasdale, 2010), it remains unclear which factors influence the image of a young social enterprise. This study sets out to contribute to the discussions on the legitimacy of early-stage social enterprises before they have developed their reputation or any brand recognition (Kibler et al., 2018; Murphy et al., 2019; Weidner 756 YAHYAOUI ET AL. et al., 2019). We specifically investigate the characteristics that determine how external individuals evaluate the image of young social enterprises. Based on human value theory (Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) and value congruence (Ihm & Baek, 2021; Muchinsky & Monahan, 1987), we argue that the image of a young enterprise depends on an individual's deeply rooted value system and that this relationship varies for young social versus commercial enterprises. Human values are defined as a person's desirable goals which guide the evaluation of actions, policies, people, and events (Agle & Caldwell, 1999; Meglino, 1998; Schwartz, 2003). Human value theory argues that values are arranged in a circular structure representing the corresponding and conflicting potential of each type of value (Schwartz, 2003,2012). In this vein, values concerning self-orientation (i.e., selfenhancement) oppose values reflecting a fundamental orientation toward others (i.e., self-transcendence) (Schwartz, 2003,2012). In our study, we propose the conflicting self-transcendence versus self-enhancement value dimension of individuals as being highly relevant to understand differences between the image of young social versus commercial enterprises. A person's positive perception of an enterprise's image is determined by the congruence between his/her value system and the value system that is expressed by the enterprise's main mission (e.g., social vs. commercial) (Muchinsky & Monahan, 1987). Consequently, individuals' personally held values and how they perceive the values of an organization and its founders should play a key role in explaining why individuals perceive young social enterprises differently than commercial enterprises. For this paper, we conducted a vignette study with 945 university students entering the job market. We presented a between-subject vignette design containing an interview with a founder of a young social or commercial enterprise. The vignettes specifically include information on the founders' goals and objectives for forming the enterprise. Compared to more established enterprises, the founders of young enterprises develop the enterprises closely around their meanings and values (Blake et al., 2015; O'Neil & Ucbasaran, 2016; Sieger et al., 2016). Hence, using an interview with a founder who spoke about his/her enterprise, increased the external validity of our vignette study. Additionally, in the enterprise's inception phase, where entrepreneurial teams are still small, the enterprises evolve around the founders' ideas, putting them at the center of attention (e.g., Andersson & Walk, 2022). Especially in the context of young social enterprises and non-profit organizations, founders use storytelling as a marketing approach which helps gaining legitimacy from their stakeholders (Margiono et al., 2019). For instance, founders use themselves as a main character in an engaging story of how they started the social enterprise which can evoke the empathy of stakeholders and thereby enables their support in terms of (non-)financial resources (Margiono et al., 2019). We regard students close to graduation as one of the most relevant populations of external individuals as they, depending on their specific life course, will occupy a variety of roles relevant to social enterprises, such as business founders, applicants, customers, investors, journalists, and politicians. This study contributes to the literature along two lines. First, our study introduces human value theory as an explanatory framework for understanding how external individuals generate an image of young enterprises. We learn about the antecedents of the evaluation of young social enterprises. Thus, we can point to particular human dispositions that result in a supporting or deprecating stance toward newly founded social enterprises. This finding is particularly fruitful since research thus far has considered a marketing perspective in nonand for-profit organizations (e.g., Michaelidou et al., 2015; Michel & Rieunier, 2012) but only tentatively investigated the enterprise image of young social enterprises. Our research proposes that social enterprises may suffer from having an enterprise image, which signals the role of the enterprise as a social YAHYAOUI ET AL.757 contributor, but at the same time creates disinterest in individuals with opposing values, which eventually leads to an equivocal image of social enterprises. Consequently, this equivocal image could create difficulties when seeking to access economically driven resources and capabilities needed for the young enterprise's survival, such as attracting potential customers, employees, and investors—who may hold differing values. Second, our research adds to the literature on social entrepreneurship by showing differences between young social and commercial enterprises. Particularly, the differences in the perception of young social and commercial enterprises indicate that mechanisms, such as investment seeking, networking activities, and decision-making, may vary systematically depending on whether the young enterprise is of a social or a commercial type (Nicholls, 2010; Riedo et al., 2019; Shaw & Carter, 2007; Wry & York, 2017). Hence, we extend research by showing that social and commercial enterprises do not only differ regarding their structures and the motivation of their founders (Beugré, 2014; Yitshaki & Kropp, 2016) but also differ regarding the perception of the young enterprise itself. Our study demonstrates that a central tenet of the human value theory (Schwartz, 2003), specifically, the proposition that individuals cannot simultaneously hold contradictory self-oriented versus other-oriented values helps to explain a plethora of human attitudes and behaviors relevant to the (social) entrepreneurial process such as recruitment or investment decisions. 2|THEORY AND HYPOTHESES 2.1 |Young social enterprises and their struggle for legitimacy Social enterprises follow the dual mission of achieving social aims as well as attaining financial sustainability and, therefore, blur our understanding of for-profit and non-profit organizations (Dart et al., 2010; Doherty et al., 2014; Saebi et al., 2019). Social enterprises, for instance, strive to improve the lives of disadvantaged people or secure biodiversity by implementing entrepreneurial methods that help generate revenues (Doherty et al., 2014; Saebi et al., 2019). In contrast to this dual mission, for-profit or commercial enterprises focus on maximizing shareholders' financial returns while social aims are secondary (Battilana & Lee, 2014; Saebi et al., 2019; Vedula et al., 2022). Likewise, the dual mission distinguishes social enterprises from non-profit organizations, which may also generate income (e.g., donations). However, in nonprofit organizations, the revenue is typically bound to a specific project and is not included in the organization's mission (Saebi et al., 2019). Although social enterprises differ in many ways from commercial and pure non-profit organizations (e.g., governance structure, strategies, norms; Dart et al., 2010), their dual mission is one of the most crucial distinguishing factors. The dual mission is the guiding post for strategic decision-making (Doherty et al., 2014; Saebi et al., 2019). Furthermore, it is part of the interaction with stakeholders, particularly in the early emergence of social enterprises (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Nielsen et al., 2021). The dual mission of social enterprises, however, entails the challenge of gaining legitimacy from stakeholders (i.e., employees, potential customers, potential investors, and suppliers), which is particularly necessary for young enterprises (Doherty et al., 2014; O'Neil & Ucbasaran, 2016; Siqueira et al., 2018; Wiklund et al., 2010). Hence, legitimacy is a prerequisite for young social enterprises' success, making it particularly important (Vedula et al., 2022). Social enterprises, on the one hand, face the challenge that incorporating two missions can produce conflicting demands and implies a balance between social and economic means and aims. 758 YAHYAOUI ET AL. This need to balance both missions makes the categorization by stakeholders difficult (Doherty et al., 2014; Suykens et al., 2019; Vedula et al., 2022). On the other hand, the effort to gain legitimacy is more intense during the enterprises' emergence phase. Notably, their liability of newness, which implies that young social enterprises lack established routines and organizational capabilities, hinders them from obtaining critical resources (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Uzuegbunam et al., 2021; Wiklund et al., 2010). The legitimacy issues are further reflected in the young social enterprise's marketing strategy (Mitzinneck & Besharov, 2019) since external individuals (e.g., potential customers) often criticize a social enterprise when the impression arises that one of the two goals inherent in the enterprise's mission might be overprioritized (Liu et al., 2015). Remarkably, this criticism arises since the young enterprise's social mission is particularly relevant in the eyes of potential customers and the general public (Doherty et al., 2014). Hence, current research stresses that young social and commercial enterprises must distinguish marketing capabilities and approaches, since an overemphasis on economic objectives endangers the possibility for social enterprises to gain legitimacy (Liu et al., 2015). However, balancing both missions is particularly challenging because social enterprises must implement commercial enterprise means while also addressing social or environmental problems with their efforts (Liu et al., 2015). The research underlines that being oriented toward a social mission calls for more marketing and branding efforts (Michaelidou et al., 2015; Michel & Rieunier, 2012). Notably, the social enterprise's image is essential to its efforts to position itself in the market and has the power to shape consumers' attitudes and actions (e.g., purchasing behavior) (Michaelidou et al., 2015; Riordan et al., 1997; Younger & Fisher, 2020). Despite its importance, we know very little about which factors shape the image of young social enterprises. When following a social mission, the image of the enterprise relates not only to functional associations (e.g., functional benefits of the product/service) but also to symbolic associations (e.g., associations with the values of the organization) (Michel & Rieunier, 2012). Symbolic associations affect the enterprise's success since they are closely related to stakeholders' values and behavior, such as their willingness to donate to the organization's cause (Michel & Rieunier, 2012). Since young social enterprises encompass elements of non-profit organizations and, at the same time, aspects of commercial enterprises, creating a positive enterprise image is particularly challenging. Ultimately social enterprises that incorporate a dual mission need to address external individuals from both spheres (i.e., social/symbolic and commercial/functional) and hence need to align their marketing efforts with stakeholders' values. 2.2 |Human value theory Values have become an important subject not only in psychological research but also in the field of management. For instance, studies show that values influence engagement in corporate social responsibility (Baumgartner, 2014), the formation of an organizational stigma (Devers et al., 2009; Tracey & Phillips, 2016), work attitudes among employees (Arieli et al., 2019;de Hoogh et al., 2005), customer intention and decision making (Ahmad et al., 2020) and also employer attractiveness (Chatman, 1989). We draw on Schwartz's human value theory (Schwartz, 2003; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) because it captures the different foci of human values and provides an overarching structure showing the pattern of conflict and congruity among values. Schwartz (2012, p. 17) states that “values are one important, especially central component of our self and personality, distinct from attitudes, beliefs, norms, and traits. Values are YAHYAOUI ET AL.759 critical motivators of behaviours and attitudes”. Furthermore, Bardi and Schwartz (2003,p. 1208) claim values to be “relatively stable motivational characteristics of persons that change little during adulthood”. Schwartz (2003) proposes a set of 10 values that reflect the most fundamental foci: universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, security, power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, and self-direction. As values imply similar classes of specific goals and standards, some values will be congruent with others of similar classes of goals (e.g., striving for power and striving for achievement). In contrast, values may stand in conflict with each other when the underlying goals imply conflicting ends (e.g., serving oneself versus serving others). Figure 1is an illustration of values in a circumplex structure according to human values theory (Schwartz, 2003,2012); which helps to delineate the contradictory or compatible nature of values and their two orthogonal dimensions. Although an individual's values regarding the dimension of openness to change versus conservation might affect all kinds of innovation and entrepreneurship topics, we propose that an individual's values regarding the dimension of self-enhancement/self-transcendence hold explanatory value for differences in their evaluation of the image of a young social or commercial enterprise. Self-transcendence is reflected by values that transcend an individual's striving for his/her personal benefit (Schwartz, 2012). This dimension concerns values of universalism and benevolence, which are connected to the welfare and interest of others (Schwartz, 2012). Schwartz (2003, p. 268) defines universalism as the “understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature”and benevolence as the “preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact”.In contrast, self-enhancement is concerned with the pursuit of one's own interest and success (Schwartz, 2012). Self-enhancement consists of the values power and achievement. Schwartz (2003, p. 267) defines power as a value that aims for “social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources”and achievement as “personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards”. The pursuit of self-enhancement and FIGURE 1 Theoretical circular structure of human values (own illustration based on Schwartz, 2003, p.270) 760 YAHYAOUI ET AL. self-transcendence are motivational opposites and, therefore, individuals are unlikely to endorse both sets of values to an equal extent (Schwartz, 2012). Although the theory of human values stresses the compatible versus the conflicting potential of different sets of values, we argue that this postulate can be generalized to a potential compatibility versus conflict between a person's value and the actual or signaled values of other persons or collectives. This generalization implies that the image of a firm should be a function of the degree of congruence between the values of an individual and the values that an enterprise signals (Hoffman & Woehr, 2006; Kristof, 1996; O'Reilly et al., 1991). For instance, research shows that job applicants regard the similarity between their own and the perceived values of a potential employer as an important basis for their intention to apply (Judge & Bretz, 1992). Furthermore, research suggests that value congruence is a determinant of job satisfaction and organizational identification (Ihm & Baek, 2021; van Vianen, 2018). We propose that the subjective value congruence between the individual's values and those values expressed by the young enterprise through its stated mission, marketing strategy, or the explicit behavior visible to the individual provides the basis for image generation. For instance, if an individual with strong other-oriented values perceives an enterprise and its founders to have those same values, he/she will be more likely to positively evaluate the enterprise's image. Conversely, if the same individual perceives the enterprise and its founders to hold strong self-enhancement values, we expect the individual to evaluate the enterprise's image more negatively. This proposition does not require that these expressed values are actually held by the organization nor that the person validly and correctly observes the behavior of the enterprise. 2.3 |The role of values for the perception of the Enterprise image Following human value theory (Schwartz, 2003,2012), we propose that self-transcendence values result in a more positive evaluation of the image of young social enterprises. Within social enterprises, the aim to benefit the collective interest is seen as outweighing the importance of economic value creation (Bacq et al., 2016; Peredo & McLean, 2006; Shaw & Carter, 2007). Young social enterprises are founded by compassionate people, who have a high sense of empathy with their (typically deprived) target group(s) (Forster & Grichnik, 2013; Miller et al., 2012). Thus, social enterprises focus on creating value for the benefit of society or the environment (e.g., reducing poverty, and carbon emissions), while they capture value to sustain their primary social welfare objective (Costanzo et al., 2014; Doherty et al., 2014; Michaud & Tello-Rozas, 2020). Based on human value theory, we propose that self-transcendence values will positively affect an individual's appreciation of the social welfare goals of young social enterprises to the extent that an individual perceives the enterprise and its founders' goals and motivations to match his/her value system. In contrast, we further propose that self-transcendence values are likely to negatively relate to the image of young commercial enterprises. Although commercial enterprises may also seek to contribute to the collective interests of a specific target group or wider society (van de Ven et al., 2007), they are more strongly connected with a commercial logic and the enterprise is expected to act in a profit-generating manner (Ebrahim et al., 2014; Riedo et al., 2019; Yitshaki & Kropp, 2016). High self-transcendence values will lead to a less positive evaluation of young commercial enterprises due to the enterprise's striving for financial success and, thus, selfenhancement aims. This notion is strengthened through findings from prior research on person-organization fit suggesting that individuals are likely to identify with an enterprise if the YAHYAOUI ET AL.761 values portrayed by the enterprise are congruent with their own values, and more likely to distance themselves when they cannot connect to the enterprise's values (Hoffman & Woehr, 2006; Kristof, 1996; O'Reilly et al., 1991). Hypothesis 1. Individuals'self-transcendence values interact with the type of enterprise (i.e., social vs.commercial) such that,the higher one's self-transcendence values, the more positive one's image of social enterprises compared to commercial enterprises. Next, we suggest that individuals with high self-enhancement values are more likely to have a less positive image when being confronted with a young social enterprise that they associate with having a strong orientation toward others. Due to the prominence of the social mission in social enterprises (Austin et al., 2006; Miller et al., 2012; Nicholls, 2010), an individual with strong self-enhancement values should have a less positive evaluation of the image of young social enterprises due to signaling standards and goals that are in conflict with their own selfenhancing goals. Analogously, we argue that individuals' values of self-enhancement lead to the generation of a more positive image when being confronted with a young commercial enterprise since the individuals perceive that the enterprise shares those values. Although social enterprises prioritize their social mission over economic aims (Saebi et al., 2019; Santos, 2012), commercial enterprises represent the realization of needs such as the need for income, status, and prestige, which in turn match the motivational objectives of self-enhanced individuals (Hirschi & Fischer, 2013; Holland & Shepherd, 2013). Hence, the image of young commercial enterprises should be evaluated more positively by individuals with high self-enhancement values due to the matching goals of the enterprises and self-enhancement-oriented individuals. According to human value theory (Schwartz, 2003), self-enhancement values and self-transcendence values are in conflict with each other. Thus, we propose that strong self-enhancement values are congruent with young commercial enterprises' goals, and less congruent with values reflected in young social enterprises (e.g., enhancing the overall societal well-being) (Riedo et al., 2019). Following the previous and following hypotheses, the research model of our study is depicted in Figure 2. Hypothesis 2. Individuals'self-enhancement values interact with the type of enterprise (i.e., social vs.commercial) such that,the higher one's self-enhancement values, the less positive one's image of social enterprises compared to commercial enterprises. FIGURE 2 The research model based on human value theory (Schwartz, 2003,2012) 762 YAHYAOUI ET AL. highest levels of self-enhancement values resulting in a negative evaluation of young social enterprises. The results of the simple slope analysis showed a significant effect of individuals' levels of self-enhancement values on their image of young social enterprises (β=0.12, p< 0.01). Furthermore, the findings of the simple slope analysis showed a non-significant relationship for the effect of an individual's self-enhancement values on the evaluation of the image of young commercial enterprises (β=0.06, p> 0.10). A post hoc simple comparison of the means of the evaluations of the enterprises reveals that young social enterprises are generally perceived more positively than their commercial counterparts (p < .01). However, as explained above, this warm glow effect on the image of social enterprises depends on an individual's levels of self-transcendence and self-enhancement values. Figure 4demonstrates the effects of individuals' self-enhancement values on their image of young social enterprises with the pillars to the right, while the effect of individuals' self-transcendence values on young commercial enterprises is demonstrated with the pillars to the left. 5|DISCUSSION Social enterprises elude easy categorization into either a non-profit or for-profit organization, in turn, posing a challenge for external individuals to fully grasp the concept of social enterprise and to fully evaluate those enterprises compared to commercial (or non-profit) organizations (Austin et al., 2006; Bacq & Alt, 2018; Barraket et al., 2016; Peiffer et al., 2020). This study extends our understanding of individual-level factors that explain external stakeholders' evaluation of social enterprise image compared to their perceptions of commercial enterprises operating in the same industry. The results show that self-transcendence values (i.e., other-oriented values) positively influence individuals' evaluation of the image of young social enterprises, whereas self-enhancement values (i.e., self-centered values) are negatively related to social enterprise image. Surprisingly, our findings also reveal that high self-transcendence values 1 2 3 4 5 6 Commercial enterprise Social enterprise Enterprise image The effect of self-enhancement values on enterprise image FIGURE 4 Interaction effect between the type of Enterprise and self-enhancement values. Low selfenhancement =1 SD below the average; high self-enhancement =1 SD above the average. YAHYAOUI ET AL.769 positively relate with the image of young commercial enterprises, whereas self-enhancement values were not related with the image of commercial enterprises. 5.1 |Theoretical implications First, this study shows the fruitfulness of using human value theory for social entrepreneurship research to investigate the evaluation of the image of young social versus commercial enterprises by external individuals. Viewing social enterprises from a values perspective lends an important and understudied lens to understand the roots of motivations, perception, affective responses, and actions of humans (Kruse, Wach, Costa & Moriano, 2019). Although we focused on the role of values for the evaluation of external individuals, values further concern the aspirations, goals, and strategies of founders and, their employees, or consumers. Human values do not only act as guiding principles but also function as antecedents of actions and behavior (Schwartz, 2003,2012). In line with previous research on the importance of values for pro-social behavior and intentions (Ahmad et al., 2020; Ip et al., 2021; Sastre-Castillo et al., 2015) we suggest that implementing human value theory contributes not only by acknowledging which aspects are positively related to social enterprises (Bacq & Alt, 2018; Mair & Noboa, 2006;Ruskin et al., 2016), but also adds an explanation for which aspects might deteriorate the image of social enterprises. Furthermore, our findings suggest that values play a crucial role in explaining phenomena connected to social enterprises. According to our results, 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. As values are fairly stable and explain attitudes and behaviors (Schwartz, 2003; Vecchione et al., 2016), they might also determine the extent to which social enterprises attract employees, customers, and investors. As we discuss, this can be especially important for young social enterprises as they seek investment, donations, customers, and other support to grow and sustain their operations (Ihm & Baek, 2021; Lee, 2021). Research has already shown that welfare versus commercial orientation in the way human resource practices by social enterprises are crafted, influences the acquisition of employees (Moses & Sharma, 2020). Our study adds the importance of individual-level factors that influence the effects of such organization-level actions and attributes. As our findings show, individuals with high self-enhancement values hold less favorable views of social enterprises which might affect the behavior of potential job candidates, customers, and investors. Particularly in areas where self-enhancement values might be more inherent in everyday practices (e.g., profit-seeking in investment and business), social enterprises could face problems, such as disinterest, and negative expectations relative to commercial enterprise counterparts. Moreover, past research has shown that self-enhancement values such as achievement and power are likely to arise in combination with openness to change values such as stimulation and self-direction (Steinmetz et al., 2012), which are crucial drivers for entrepreneurial activities (Hirschi & Fischer, 2013). By solely focusing on the social mission, social enterprises might run the risk of signaling non-enhancement-related goals and characteristics. Thereby, they might fail to attract individuals with high self-enhancement values and, thus, might miss out on leveraging crucial entrepreneurial characteristics, such as the motivation for growth and profitability (Giones et al., 2020; Gorgievski et al., 2011; Tykkyläinen et al., 2016). On the other hand, emphasizing the economic similarity to commercial enterprises could be expected to deter individuals with self-transcendence values. However, we find self-transcendence values to have a 770 YAHYAOUI ET AL. positive (rather than a negative) effect on the image of young commercial enterprises as well, implying that self-transcendent individuals are not deterred from commercial enterprises. A possible reason for this unexpected effect could be that individuals with high self-transcendence values associate concern and empathy for others with emergent enterprises independently of the type. Empathy for others is required to understand customers' problems and increase their interest in a product or service (Gabbott & Hogg, 2001; Wieseke et al., 2012). Furthermore, particularly self-transcendent individuals might regard commercial enterprises as socially desirable, despite their economic orientation, since they also provide a societal value (e.g., creating potential job opportunities). We encourage future research to further investigate other self-oriented personality traits that might explain the relationship between self-transcendence values and the positive image of commercial enterprises. External individuals could associate a more profound meaning with commercial enterprises beyond achievement and power-oriented goals. Hence, different personality traits might be more relevant for evaluating young commercial enterprises. Last, this study adds value to the debate on the distinction between social and commercial enterprises (Austin et al., 2006; Dacin et al., 2010; Peredo & McLean, 2006). Thus, this study provides insights by investigating factors explaining why and to which degree the two types of enterprises are perceived differently. Our findings suggest that perceptions of social and commercial enterprises differ depending on value profiles. Our findings further suggest that young social enterprises are on average evaluated more positively, regardless of which values individuals hold. Thereby, we add to the literature on the legitimacy of social enterprises (Dart, 2004; Nicholls, 2010; Ruebottom, 2013) by showing that the concept of social entrepreneurship is regarded positively by externals, despite the controversies on its dual missions, which is discussed in the literature (Doherty et al., 2014; Moss et al., 2011). Future research should aim at investigating which consequences may result from a stronger reaction to social versus commercial enterprises and if these reactions are related to an enterprise's survival. 5.2 |Practical implications The study points to two important practical implications. First, our results indicate that social enterprises mainly attract self-transcendent individuals, while it also indicates that individuals with stronger self-enhancement values might be less attracted to social enterprises. When aiming to employ self-enhanced people, social enterprises may benefit from portraying not only self-transcendence values regarding their image but also self-enhancement values. Accordingly, social enterprises might benefit from tailoring their outward communications to the audience that they are trying to reach. Thereby, these enterprises may benefit from attracting a higher number of candidates with the desired and needed human values. Second, our results suggest individuals' self-transcendent values have a positive impact on the image of both social and commercial enterprises. This finding strengthens the notion that for enterprises' engagement with social value creation as their business model, it pays to project self-transcendent values, which would result in the enterprise having a positive image and hence give them better access to resources. Communication of values related to enhancing overall societal well-being carries an important value for either type of enterprise. Our results provide further evidence that commercial enterprises benefit from highlighting the social orientation of their business practices. YAHYAOUI ET AL.771 5.3 |Limitations and future research This study is subject to at least four main limitations. First, we limited our research to the simplified dichotomy between social and commercial enterprises. However, social enterprises take a variety of hybrid forms (Aileen Boluk & Mottiar, 2014; Hota et al., 2019; Mair & Martí, 2006). While the social enterprise's mission is undoubtedly one of the most distinguishing elements between social and commercial enterprises, there are further distinguishing factors (e.g., differences in governance structures and differences regarding the beneficiaries and potential investors and how to address them). Future research could extend our findings by integrating other hybrid organizations that follow mixed missions to investigate more nuanced differences. Furthermore, our study focuses on social versus commercial enterprises. Hence, we did not include non-profit organizations in the analysis as non-profit organizations differ from social enterprises because they do not aim at economic goals. Future research could enhance our understanding by investigating all three types of organizations. Second, the participants of our study were restricted to university students and we did not investigate the differences in the effect of values on enterprise image for explicit stakeholder groups (e.g. investors, customers, and the general public). Given that individuals' values are generally stable throughout their life (Schwartz, 2003; Vecchione et al., 2016), we propose that a student-sampled study provides insights into a wider context. Nevertheless, future research could benefit from an assessment of individuals' perceptions of enterprises under topic-related circumstances (e.g., venture capitalists, politicians). Third, our sample was restricted to a German population. Germany provides an interesting and salient context to study social entrepreneurship, as it can be regarded as representative for countries with a poor entrepreneurial culture (Bosma & Kelley, 2019; Foreman-Peck & Zhou, 2013). As values have been proven to be closely related to culture (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001), future research could extend our findings in other contexts or on an international level and investigate differences and commonalities between the effects of values and enterprise image perceptions in a cross-national or cross-cultural comparison. Fourth, we focused on the role of human values in the perception of organizations' image in our study. Although the human values that we investigated are closely linked to the perceived legitimacy of the organizations represented in our study and strongly affect stakeholders' symbolic associations, other relevant factors might also affect external stakeholders' perceptions of social and commercial enterprises. Within our study, we controlled for any differences by gender since entrepreneurship research demonstrates that women tend to have a greater orientation toward social motives than men (Chandler et al., 2022). Our study also supports this finding. Hence, future research could benefit from investigating the role of sociodemographic factors in greater depth. For example, in addition to controlling for other socio-demographic factors, future research could benefit from analyzing which elements of an enterprise's image might be more relevant for female than male stakeholders. Future research could also go beyond socio-demographic aspects and explore which other personality traits (e.g., big five personality traits) might affect individuals' evaluation of an enterprise's image. Since previous research underlines the prosocial characteristics of social entrepreneurs and shows that entrepreneurs in general imprint their enterprises with their characteristics and values (Blake et al., 2015), other traits might be highly relevant for future research to investigate. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. 772 YAHYAOUI ET AL. CONFLICT OF INTEREST The authors declare no potential conflict of interest. DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. ORCID Yasmine Yahyaoui https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0261-6960 Eva A. Jakob https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7369-7396 Holger Steinmetz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5052-4214 Marius C. Wehner https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1932-3155 Rodrigo Isidor https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9717-0561 Rüdiger Kabst https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3897-0670 REFERENCES Agle, B. R., & Caldwell, C. B. (1999). Understanding research on values in business. Business & Society,38(3), 326–387. Aguinis, H., & Bradley, K. J. (2014). Best practice recommendations for designing and implementing experimental vignette methodology studies. Organizational Research Methods,17(4), 351–371. Ahmad, W., Kim, W. G., Anwer, Z., & Zhuang, W. (2020). 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Her research focuses on individuals’perceptions and intentions in the context of (social) entrepreneurship as well as team processes and team composition in social ventures. Moreover, her research includes work on Corporate Social Responsibility. Holger Steinmetz is a postdoctoral researcher at Trier University. He is an organizational psychologist with a focus on methodology. His focus is on structural equation modeling and 778 YAHYAOUI ET AL.