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.
