Hybrid Social Enterprises Approach to Brand Management

Abstract

Recently there has been a remarkable growth in hybrid social enterprises since they have a unique blend of social and economic goals. Despite this, hybrid social enterprises face various challenges when it comes to branding. These challenges are not only practical in nature but also theoretical, since little can be found in the literature on how these organisations brand themselves. Furthermore, both the fields of branding and hybrid social entrepreneurship are newly emerged and evolving thus offering a lot of opportunity for research. The purpose of this research study is to provide theoretical contribution to the identified gap in theory by using existing theories in brand management and using a research methodology of mixed methods approach. The data was collected through a survey of fifty two hybrid social enterprises and semi structure interviews of five hybrid social organisations in Gothenburg. The findings indicate that hybrid social enterprises are more likely to use the relational approach as described in the theory by Heding et al. (2009). However, there was no indication of the unison application of this approach among all. Furthermore, hybrid social enterprises used a combination of various brand management methods. A critical finding of this study was also the discovery of the hybrid social enterprises attitude to ' branding as a no brand'. All these findings indicate the evidence of an eighth brand management approach. Finally the research also provides direction for future research with ranging themes for further research.