Tell Me a Story: A Study on Organizational Identity Building with a Focus on Philippine Social Enterprises

Abstract

The field of research in social enterprises is still considered at its infancy. There are still so many different aspects of social enterprises to be studied. This particular research aimed to look beyond sustainability and explored how narratives affect the organizational identity with particular attention given to social enterprises. Five Philippine-based social enterprises, fully operational for at least two years, were interviewed for this thesis. Through context-sensitive narrative analysis combined with careful evaluation on enterprise design adapted from the book, The Impact Equation (Brogan and Smith, 2012) this research aimed to see the factors that affected their organizational narratives and gain insight as to how these social enterprises’ design were influenced. Upon further evaluation, it was discovered that the realities of social enterprises discussed in the related literature are true but are not fully encompassing of how our Filipino social enterprises work. Philippine social enterprises do not focus on a target population but are community-based and expanding consistently to accommodate more communities. Growth is not just in income or production but also in impact. While storytelling is acknowledged as important, these enterprises have bigger concerns other than marketing. Beyond marketing and organizational identity building, there is still a struggle to establish one’s place as local enterprise in the Philippine market. The collective dream to grow local economies sustainably is challenged not just by internal operations and constraints but external societal factors. This begs future organizational narratives to be more than “sharing a story” but constructing a message that encapsulates the relevance, the organizational essence and the product benefit.