Social impact through family firms’ interorganizational relationships within a community and a cooperative: An embedded view of stewardship

Abstract

Current literature provides limited understanding on the processes through which interorganizational relationships contribute to social impact. We focus on a context, which is uniquely suited to understanding this phenomenon: a cooperative composed of family firms that operate in a rural community. We draw on stewardship and embeddedness perspectives to understand the way interorganizational relationships within a community and a cooperative allow family firms to engage in social impact. Relying on abductive logic and a qualitative multiple case study research, this study unveils the micro-processes and mechanisms through which interorganizational relationships within a cooperative and a community allow firms to operate on a continuum comprised of social value generation, sharing and replication practices. An embedded form of stewardship emerges as a core mechanism for interorganizational social impact activities. A conceptual model, based on generating, sharing and replicating processes of social impact is proposed. Implications and opportunities for further research are presented.