What and How Hybrid Forms of Christian Social Enterprises Are Created and Sustained in Cambodia? A Critical Realist Institutional Logics Perspective

Abstract

On top of the well-known dilemma of social enterprises as hybrid organizations, the form in which they struggle to balance business viability and the fulfillment of social missions, faith-based social enterprises have an added dimension: their spirituality manifested as organizational culture and practices based on their spiritual values and mission to spread their faith. By employing critical realist institutional logics and an identity-based and biographical approach to social entrepreneurship, this study identifies a typology of different hybrid forms of Christian social enterprises in Cambodia and the tensions associated with them. Moreover, this study explores how and why their social entrepreneurs have created and sustained such forms. I analyzed the qualitative data of 12 Christian social enterprises mainly from interviews with their entrepreneurs. Broadly speaking, the analysis revealed that the hybrid forms of these enterprises depend on the entrepreneurs’ agency, which is influenced by their biographies and contexts. Particularly, in addition to the entrepreneurs’ possession and enactment of multiple identities, boards of directors (as part of the context) and their accountability pressures are crucial for Christian social enterprises to achieve the triple bottom line of business viability, social missions, and spiritual outcomes.

1. Introduction

Social enterprises, as hybrid organizations, struggle to balance their business viability and the fulfillment of their social missions. For faith-based social enterprises, the dimension of their spirituality—manifested as, for example, organizational culture and practices based on their religious values and mission to spread their faith—is added to their hybridity and the associated tensions (Figure 1). Some faith-based social enterprises from various faith backgrounds have tried reconciling their business viability, social missions, and spirituality one way or another. Several studies have tackled this topic, for example, faith in general (Roundy et al. 2016), the evangelical Protestant Christian (Gort and Tunehag 2018), and Islamic finance (Gümüsay 2020). Business as Mission (BAM) is an emerging concept and practice in the evangelical Protestant Christian circle that resonates with this endeavor. Johnson (2009) defined BAM as “a for-profit business venture that is Christian led, intentionally devoted to being used as an instrument of God’s mission (missio Dei) to the world, and is operated in a cross-cultural environment, either domestic or international” (p. 297). In particular, Rundle (2012) and Tunehag (2008) highlighted that BAM tries fulfilling the triple bottom line: financial (i.e., business viability), social (i.e., social missions), and spiritual outcomes (i.e., Christian spirituality). The specific tenet of Christianity that drives social missions is holistic missions that reconcile individuals and societies intentionally and holistically back to God by meeting the multidimensional needs (e.g., emotional and physical) of people and transforming societies (e.g., government institutions and private companies) for the better1 (Albright et al. 2014; Gort and Tunehag 2018; Rundle 2012). Christian spirituality can be manifested explicitly and implicitly, which distinguishes Christian social enterprises from social enterprises with no spiritual learning. The explicit ones may include Bible study, corporate prayer meetings, and Biblical character development classes, whereas the implicit ones may include role modeling and organizational culture based on Biblical principles (e.g., love, forgiveness, and justice) and Biblical leadership (e.g., servant leadership) (Johnson 2009). This added dimension of spirituality makes the operation of a Christian social enterprise more complex, which can be manifested as a mission drift from one or two bottom lines (Greer and Horst 2014; Rundle 2012). However, the literature (e.g., Beech 2018) on how and why Christian social entrepreneurs fulfill or cannot fulfill these bottom lines is limited. Additionally, although Christian social enterprises have emerged in Cambodia in the last two decades or so, no study has been conducted to typologize them yet, let alone explore how and why they have or have not achieved the triple bottom line. Hence, this study identifies a typology of different hybrid forms of Christian social enterprises in Cambodia and the tensions associated with them. Moreover, it explores how and why their social entrepreneurs have created and sustained such forms.

The remainder of this article is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the Cambodian context, and Section 3 provides the theoretical framework. Section 4 shows the methodology. Section 5 presents the findings and discussion. Finally, Section 6 concludes, summarizes the key findings, and draws out theoretical and practical implications.

2. The Cambodian Context

Cambodia became a lower middle-income country in 2015 because of its remarkable economic growth out of its devastated post-conflict situations (World Bank 2021b). As of 2019, official development aid (ODA) still constituted 23 percent of the Cambodian government’s spending (World Bank 2021a), and Cambodia aims to be an upper middle-income country by 2030 (World Bank 2021b). In Cambodia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been prevalent as service-providing organizations (Lyne et al. 2015). However, international aid has been increasingly directed toward government budget support rather than NGOs, and NGOs’ own donors have tended to direct its support to more poverty-stricken countries such as those in Africa, instead of lower middle-income Cambodia, thereby forcing NGOs to seek earned income by being transformed into social enterprises (Khieng and Dahles 2015; Lyne et al. 2015; Parks 2008).

In terms of religion, 95 percent of the Cambodian population is Buddhist (particularly Theravada Buddhist) (US Embassy in Cambodia 2021). However, because of the influx of Protestant Christian missionaries and NGO workers since the early 1990s, around two percent of the total Cambodian population is Christian (ibid.).

2.1. Social Enterprises in Cambodia

Social enterprises have no legal category in Cambodian law; hence, social enterprises in Cambodia are either business entities registered with the Ministry of Commerce or NGOs/associations registered with the Ministry of Interior (Lyne et al. 2015). The former needs to pay taxes as for-profit organizations, whereas the latter does not. Hence, one of the key variables for social enterprises in Cambodia is whether they have business statuses, as it determines the financial burdens they should bear (ibid.). Most social enterprises in Cambodia are NGOs or associations in terms of legal status (ibid.). The concept of social enterprise/entrepreneurship is still something that expatriates rather than Cambodian are familiar with and implement (Lyne 2012; Mandinyenya and Douglas 2011), as evidenced by the involvement of many expatriates in the sample Christian social enterprises in this study. The typical sectors that social enterprises in Cambodia are involved in are vocational training business (e.g., hospitality, apparel, and beauticians); energy, environment, and livelihoods (e.g., solar energy); health (e.g., nutritional products); and rural development (e.g., organic marketing) (Khieng and Dahles 2015; Lyne 2012; Lyne et al. 2015). Most sample Christian social enterprises fall into these categories, particularly vocational training businesses or work-integration social enterprises (WISEs), while one sample enterprise is a microfinance institution (MFI).

2.2. Relevance of the Study to Other Contexts

This study’s findings might provide some comparable insights into similar societal contexts such as Ethiopia and Rwanda, countries with remarkable post-conflict economic growth where Christian social enterprises are emerging (Moreno and Agapitova 2017; Morita 2017). Moreover, the commonality between these countries and Cambodia is that the concept and practice of social enterprises are still new. Additionally, social enterprises have no specific legal form yet; however, they can take various forms, such as business, NGOs, and cooperatives/associations (Moreno and Agapitova 2017; Pybus 2019; Rwamigabo 2017).

3. Theoretical Framework

This study employed critical realist institutional logics to elucidate how and why Christian social entrepreneurs in Cambodia have or have not achieved the triple bottom line. Institutional logics (ILs) are a strand of the new institutionalism that examines how rules and norms constrain or enable the choices and actions of individuals and organizations. They are defined as “socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs and rules” (Thornton and Ocasio 1999, p. 804) and “shape rational, mindful behavior, and individual and organizational actors have some hand in shaping and changing institutional logics” (Thornton 2004; Thornton and Ocasio 2008, p. 100). They are manifested as economic (or business), social (or social missions), and spiritual logics for faith-based social enterprises for the bases of their legitimacy, strategies, and norms (Thornton et al. 2012). Hence, social entrepreneurs are “institutional entrepreneurs” who mobilize these logics, and hence the hybrid configurations and organizational tensions of their social enterprises indeed reflect how their agency has mobilized the different logics.

Thornton and Ocasio (2008) and Thornton et al. (2012) claimed that ILs’ theorization of “embedded agency”, that is, “social action that is culturally embedded in institutional logics” (Thornton et al. 2012, p. 76), aims to overcome the overestimation of agency. However, some critics have argued that the theorization is still too agentic, as connoted in the above-mentioned “institutional entrepreneurs”, who are capable of mobilizing preferred ILs without much structural constraint (Delbridge and Edwards 2013; Leca and Naccache 2006; Weik 2011). Indeed, social entrepreneurs are influenced and encumbered by political, social, and economic contextual factors (Kerlin 2017). Meanwhile, Hills et al. (2013) suggested the Bourdieusian theorization of agency through the notion of habitus (i.e., unconscious and durable dispositions) for examining the extent to which particular ILs have been internalized, thus becoming dominant dispositions in actors. However, Mutch et al. (2006) argued that that theorization is oriented toward stasis and hence may close the door to their agentic potential. This indeed goes against the general findings in the literature that social entrepreneurs are agentic because they are “motivated by an opportunity to make some social improvement”, which “may be personally meaningful to them” (Stirzaker et al. 2021). Therefore, a more balanced and nuanced view is needed to elucidate the agency of social entrepreneurs and how it has mobilized different logics.

Hence, Leca and Naccache (2006), Mutch (2007), Delbridge and Edwards (2013), and Edwards and Meliou (2015) suggested the analytical framing of critical realism on agency in ILs to accentuate the causal and relational interplay between agency and structure2 in an attempt to situate agency in a moderate way. Critical realists understand that structures are generative mechanisms that exercise causal influences over people (Archer 2000, 2007) and predate their actions (Jessop 2001), thereby constraining or enabling their agency (Archer 2007). Critical realists regard a generative mechanism as something emerging from the concurrence of multiple forces of society (Sayer 2000). Meanwhile, they consider that people are knowledgeable and reflexive about structures or generative mechanisms and hence have the potential to be agentic (Archer 2007; Jessop 2001). Therefore, Galloway et al. (2019) argued that “it is reflexive engagement between the individual [entrepreneur] and the social that informs (perceived) opportunity to realize (perceived) value; reflexive engagement between individuals and their circumstances is necessary for opportunity and value to be perceived meaningfully and subjectively by agents, and from this, action is prompted” (p. 632, comments in brackets added). As part of this critical realist framing, Leca and Naccache (2006), Mutch (2007), Delbridge and Edwards (2013), and Edwards and Meliou (2015) suggested adding the context, or structures, as the third variable in addition to the two variables of ILs—agency and ILs—and hence examining the relationship between ILs, actors’ agency, and structures. Mutch (2007), Delbridge and Edwards (2013), and Edwards and Meliou (2015) particularly referred to Archer’s (2003, 2007) notion of reflexivity in relation to structures—which is the context in this framing—as agency through which social entrepreneurs select ILs in light of their contexts and based on their reflexive capacities. Additionally, their reflexive capacities are partly underpinned by their biographical backgrounds (Archer 2003, 2007), including their faith backgrounds (Archer 2007; Delbridge and Edwards 2013; Mutch 2007).

I used Besharov and Smith’s (2014) logic compatibility and logic centrality as the overall framework for typologizing the sample Christian social enterprises. Logic compatibility is “the extent to which the instantiations of logics imply consistent and reinforcing organizational actions” (ibid., p. 367). Similarly, Thornton et al. (2012) mention that ILs can be complementary (or competing). For example, some sample enterprises have businesses that lead to social betterment, thereby complementing their social missions. An example would be providing more nutrition to the poor and children through their nutritional products. In contrast, for many of the sample enterprises, business and social mission logics are competing because, for example, employing the disadvantaged under the competitive market—which constitutes part of their outer contexts3—is a definite disadvantage for business profitability because of the social costs associated with it, such as additional training, closer supervision, and fair wages.

Centrality, in contrast, is “the degree to which multiple logics are each treated as equally valid and relevant to organizational functioning” (Besharov and Smith 2014, p. 369). To put it differently, how much emphasis do social enterprises put on each logic? This notion of centrality has an affinity with Wry and York’s (2017) identity-based approach for typologizing social enterprise creation wherein they explain how the different identities of social entrepreneurs bring about different emphases of ILs in their creation of social enterprises. Wry and York (2017) employed two conceptualizations of identity in their approach: role identity and personal identity. Role identity is formed by the roles one occupies in society, particularly through interactions with others (Stryker and Burke 2000; Wry and York 2017). In contrast, personal identities are idiosyncratic characteristics of a person and are represented as a general view of the person across situations (Stets and Burke 2000). The identity-based approach offers more precise concepts that are applicable to the three variables of the critical realist ILs, namely, reflexivity underpinned by biographical backgrounds (that lead to identities), contexts, and ILs. First, Wry and York (2017) argued that role and personal identities of social entrepreneurs provide internal accountability pressures to act in accordance with such identities. This resonates with Archer’s (2003) theorization wherein a person’s reflexivity is underpinned by their biographical background. Second, Wry and York (2017) also discuss that the identities of social entrepreneurs, particularly their role identities, are enacted in social relationships because of external accountability pressures. For instance, the role identities of social entrepreneurs are enacted toward their boards of directors or social investors, who constitute a part of their proximate contexts. In the BAM context, the role identifies of Christian social entrepreneurs may be enacted toward informal Christian accountability partners (Johnson 2009). Finally, with the understanding that social entrepreneurs have identities associated with different ILs to various degrees, Wry and York (2017) typologized different hybrid forms of social enterprises because of internal and external enactment of those identities.

Wry and York’s (2017) topology includes single-minded entrepreneurs, mixed entrepreneurs, and balanced entrepreneurs. “[S]ingle-minded entrepreneurs will develop an opportunity using knowledge and competencies that align with a single logic, and they will seek feedback from social relations who share the same view” (ibid., p. 444). Mixed entrepreneurs, on the other hand, consider multiple logics and make “reasonable tradeoffs or connections between them” (ibid., p. 447). In particular, “[e]xternal feedback for mixed commercial entrepreneurs will focus on the financial aspects of an opportunity, whereas feedback for mixed social welfare entrepreneurs will focus on its social/environmental aspects” (ibid., p. 449). Third, the category of balanced entrepreneurs suggests that entrepreneurs’ identities associated with the multiple logics of business, social mission, and spirituality are likely to enable them to creatively integrate these logics and thus achieve the triple bottom line. This study applies Wry and York’s (2017) framework to post-launch stages.

However, Wry and York’s (2017) theoretical model focuses on social entrepreneurs’ agency without much regard to the social context or structures (except for external accountability pressures from their proximate contexts). However, as aforementioned, based on Archer’s (2003) critical realist conceptualization of agency, social entrepreneurs exercise their reflexivity in relation to structures or contexts. Together with external accountability pressures from proximate contexts discussed above, outer contexts such as government regime types and market conditions can also be regarded as structures in the critical realist theorization. Additionally, the legal statuses of social enterprises (for- or non-profit organizations) can be regarded as inner contexts, considering which social entrepreneurs exercise their reflexivity in choosing ILs in the post-launch stages. Hence, the critical realist lens strengthens Wry and York’s (2017) theoretical model. Additionally, through this framing, we can understand how “different causal factors (individual [biography] and circumstantial [inner, proximate and outer contexts]) at the level of the real will result in myriad perceived opportunities to realize myriad value-beliefs at the level of the actual, and ultimately, myriad empirical (business) outcomes will ensue”4 (Galloway et al. 2019, pp. 632–33, comments in brackets added), thereby providing more explanatory power. Figure 2 represents the process for social entrepreneurs to choose ILs through their reflexivity in light of their biographies and contexts.

From the business model perspective, Alter (2006) developed the social hybrid spectrum wherein social value creation is at one end and economic value creation at the other (Figure 3). Wry and York’s (2017) typology is based on entrepreneurs’ identities, and the critical realist model above adds the dimension of structure to it. It is useful to situate the outcomes of social entrepreneurs’ processes of choosing ILs in terms of business models with which we can identify. Four types of business models fall into the hybrid spectrum: (1) non-profit organizations with income-generating activities; (2) social enterprises; (3) socially responsible businesses; and (4) corporations practicing social responsibility. Non-profit organizations with income-generating activities incorporate income-generating activities; however, such activities create small revenue compared with donor funding (ibid.). When organizations strategically employ income-generating activities as a commercially viable business, they become social enterprises (ibid.). Hence, according to Alter (2006), a social enterprise is a “business venture created for a social purpose...and to generate social value while operating with the financial discipline, innovation and determination of a private sector business” (ibid., p. 11). In contrast, socially responsible businesses are for-profit enterprises that both make profits for their shareholders and create social value (ibid.). Finally, corporations practicing social responsibility are for-profit enterprises primarily for their shareholders; however, they engage in social value creation activities to increase public image and thus sales (ibid.)

As discussed above, the critical realist framing of ILs has an affinity with the emerging identity-based and biographical approaches to social entrepreneurship (Chandra and Shang 2017; Lee and Battilana 2013; Miller et al. 2012; Wry and York 2017; Yitshaki and Kropp 2016; Yiu et al. 2014; York et al. 2016). Chandra and Shang (2017) found that social entrepreneurs’ biographical backgrounds influenced the hybrid forms of their social enterprises. Furthermore, they found that social entrepreneurs’ distressing personal experiences and contact with the disadvantaged in their early life led to their commitment to social missions that resonated with such experiences (also Yiu et al. 2014). Their study also revealed that social entrepreneurs’ prior business and professional experiences in for-profit, non-profit, or government sector enabled them to initiate hybrid forms of their social enterprises (Chandra and Shang 2017). In a similar vein, Lee and Battilana (2013) revealed that prior business experience is an important biographical antecedent to create social enterprises with a hybrid form.

4. Methodology

For this study, I approached all the Christian social enterprises with an evangelical Protestant background in Cambodia that I knew. However, some denied access; consequently, I investigated 12 Christian social enterprises. Having previously lived and worked in Cambodia, I was aware of some of these sample enterprises. Moreover, I learned about them through my previous study on social enterprises in the Cambodian context. However, I did not know most of the interviewees, except for a few whom I knew as mere acquaintances from my previous work as a Christian NGO worker. I came to know about the other sample enterprises through the Internet (websites). Hence, overall, there were virtually no prior relationships between me and the interviewees that could influence the interview responses. Meanwhile, I disclosed my identity as an evangelical Christian and a former Christian NGO worker to the interviewees, which activated the interview process to a considerable extent (Holstein and Gubrium 1995).

I employed a biographic approach inspired by Archer (2003), which is rooted in a critical realist ontology, as a point of entry rather than a rigid method. More specifically, I used in-depth and semi-structured interviews with the entrepreneurs of the sample enterprises to capture their biographies, together with their reflexivity and contexts, as well as interviews with senior staff members of some of the sample enterprises. Additionally, I interviewed a few members of the board of directors of a few sample enterprises. Consequently, I interviewed one to three persons (including a member of its board of directors) per social enterprise. Each interview lasted between 30 to 75 min. Merriam (1988) suggested that in qualitative research, one should concurrently conduct fieldwork and data analysis. Hence, I wrote theoretical memos and planned a subsequent interview with more focused interview questions (Merriam 1988; Ota 2019). As necessary, I also conducted follow-up interviews with some respondents with emerging questions. The interviews were carried out in March 2016, March 2017, and March 2019. Most of the interviews were audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed for analysis; I also took notes for some interviews. Additionally, I used Internet sources, such as the sample enterprises’ websites and Facebook, and the literature on some of them.

4.1. Analytic Approach

I read the data—whether transcripts, interview notes, or Internet sources—throughout before analyzing for familiarity (Merriam 1988). I conducted a qualitative analysis for each enterprise through the following steps: coding, categorizing, identifying moves by drawing a category diagram, and writing a storyline (Merriam 1988; Ota 2019; Sato 2008). This was to identify key features of the entrepreneurs’ biographies and contexts and how their reflexivity—influenced by their biographies and contexts—has been exercised to mobilize ILs toward shaping their social enterprises’ organizational configurations, thereby creating tensions associated with them.

After completing all the storylines, I conducted a cross-case analysis by selecting dimensions to be compared across the cases and then identified similarities and differences between the cases (Eisenhardt 1989). Those dimensions include the sample social enterprises’ inner contexts, proximate contexts, outer contexts, entrepreneurs’ biographical backgrounds, the compatibility of ILs, and the centrality of ILs.

Table 1. Attributes and variables of sample Christian social enterprises.

	Industry	Social Impacts	Inner Context (Legal Status)	Salient Proximate Context	Salient Outer Context	Biographical Background of Entrepreneur(s)
SE1	Catering	*Employment of university students from provinces (WISE), Purchasing produces from rural farmers to sell and use for catering	Business	Christian accountability partners	Competitive market	Cambodian, Business experiences, Christian NGO experiences, Social enterprise experiences, Committed Christian, Distressing personal experiences, Rural origin
SE2	Café	*Employment of disadvantaged women (WISE), Giving back to community work	Business	Christian board that emphasizes the triple bottom line	Competitive market, “First mover” into the market	Cambodian from the disadvantaged background (i.e., distressing personal experiences), Genuine conversion and transformative spiritual experience
SE3	Tourism (Homestay), Restaurant	*Employment of the disadvantaged (WISE), Giving back to community work	Business	Christian accountability partners	Located in a rural province, Increasing numbers of tourists	Expatriate, Sense of calling to be a missionary, Exposure to own family’s business, Business experiences, Social work experiences, Prior exposure to the disadvantaged, Distressing personal experiences
SE4	Handicraft	*Employment of the disadvantaged (WISE), Giving back to community work	Association (Financially independent)	Christian board that emphasized the triple bottom line	Competitive market	Cambodian, Solid conversion experience, Distressing personal experiences
SE5	Café	*Employment of the disadvantaged (WISE), Cross-subsidizing a mother NGO (i.e., Giving back to community work)	NGO (Financially independent)	A mother Christian NGO that emphasizes the triple bottom line	Competitive market, “First mover” into the market, Located in a provincial capital	Expatriate, Sense of calling to be a missionary, Missionary experiences with social missions, Theological education
SE6	Café	*Employment of the disadvantaged (WISE)	Business	Christian board that increasingly emphasized business and social missions, Social investors	Competitive market, “First mover” into the market	Expatriate, Strong Christian background, Missionary experience with social missions, Solid business experiences relevant to SE6’s business, Theological education, including the encompassing view of God’s Kingdom
SE7	Café	*Employment of the disadvantaged (WISE), Giving back to community work	Business	Social investors	Competitive market, Socialist regime	Expatriate, Strong Christian background, Short-term business experiences
SE8	Microfinance	*Access to credit for the poor, Giving back to community work	Business	Shifting from Christian board that emphasized the triple bottom line to an investor	Competitive market, Buddhist society, due to which there have been the increased number of non-Christian employees	Multi-biographical (shifting from a missionary-oriented expatriate founder to a Cambodian Christian CEO)
SE9	Catering, Canteen	*Employment of disadvantaged women (WISE), Providing lunch to factory workers	Business	Shifting from a mother Christian NGO that deemphasized spirituality to social investors	Competitive market	Multi-biographical (shifting from missionaries to a professional), Current CEO: Returnee Cambodian, Non-Christian background, Business experiences
SE10	Nutritional products	*Employment of the disadvantaged (WISE), Providing nutritional products to the Cambodian population, Purchasing raw materials from local producers, Advocacy work toward government	Business	A mother Christian NGO that deemphasized spirituality	Competitive market	Expatriate, Long-term business experience relevant to SE10’s business, NGO experience, Exposure to the encompassing view of God’s Kingdom
SE11	Apparel	*Rescuing and reintegrating sex workers (WISE)	NGO (Financially dependent on donors)	Christian board, Christian donors	Competitive market	Expatriate, Solid conversion experience, Theological education, Church ministry experiences, Sense of calling to be a missionary, Social work experience, Prior contact with the disadvantaged, Long-term and solid business experiences, including business education
SE12	Café, Beauty salon	*Employment of disadvantaged women (WISE), *Sheltering sex workers, Giving back to community work	NGO (Financially dependent on donors)	Christian accountability partners, NGO board	Competitive market, “First mover” into the market (beauty salon)	Expatriate, Dramatic conversion, Sense of calling to be a missionary, Church ministry experiences, Social work experiences, Prior exposure to the disadvantaged, Distressing personal experiences, Long-term business experiences

Source: Author. * Primary social impacts.

and

Table 2. Compatibility and centrality comparison between sample Christian social enterprises.

	Compatibility (Competing or Complementary)	Centrality (Single-minded, Mixed, or Balanced Entrepreneurs)
SE1	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., fair wages, student employees’ lack of skills vs. Market competition) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Entrepreneur’s motive from his Christian faith to found, maintain and expand social mission activities)	Balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Business experiences, Christian NGO experiences, Social enterprise experiences, Committed Christian, Distressing personal experiences (as a university student from a rural province) - Externa Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Christian accountability partners
SE2	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., closer supervision due to employees’ lack of skills vs. Market competition) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Entrepreneur’s continued commitment to hire the disadvantaged because of her transformative spiritual experience after distressing personal experiences) - Business and Spirituality: Competing (Busyness prevented the explicit expressions of spirituality, such as daily Bible study)	Balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Genuine conversation and transformative spiritual experience, Distressing personal experiences (background of coming from a poor family) - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Christian board that emphasizes the triple bottom line.
SE3	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., closer supervision due to employees’ lack of skills vs. Market competition) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Sense of calling to be a “bussionary”—businessperson missionary; Biblical leadership conducive to the social mission to help staff grow)	Balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Sense of calling to be a missionary, Exposure to own family’s business, Business experiences, Social work experiences, Prior exposure to the disadvantaged, Distressing personal experience (background of coming from a poor family) - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Christian accountability partners
SE4	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., fair wages, staff development vs. Market competition) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Christian spirituality reflected in its core values—e.g., “a workplace that is built on friendship and encouragement is a keystone to success”—which are foundational for SE4’s social missions)	Balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Distressing personal experiences (background of coming from a poor family), Solid conversion experience - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Christian board that emphasized the triple bottom line.
SE5	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., staff development vs. Market competition) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Sense of calling to serve the disadvantaged; Biblical leadership model conducive to empowering the disadvantaged)	Balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Sense of calling to be a missionary, Missionary experiences with social missions, Theological education - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Mother Christian NGO that mandates SE5 to achieve the triple bottom line.
SE6	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (40% cap on hiring the disadvantaged; Social costs—e.g., generous leave allowance vs. Competitive market) - Business, Social Mission and Spirituality: Competing (Doing business-related, social mission and spiritual activities separately/discretely for the integrity for each of these activities)	Shifting from balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Solid business background directly related to SE6, Strong Christian background, Theological education, Missionary experience with social missions Shifting to mixed commercial entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Encompassing view of God’s Kingdom from theological education, Solid business background directly related to SE6 - External Identities (External Accountability Pressures): Christian board that increasingly emphasized business and social missions, Social investors
SE7	- Social Missions and Business: Competing (Decreased ratio for giving back to community work; 10% cap on hiring the disadvantaged vs. Competitive market) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (The co-entrepreneurs’ motive from their Christian faith for launching SE7)	Mixed commercial entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identity: Business experiences - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Social investors
SE8	- Business and Social Mission: Competing (Tension between the pressures to be become more efficient and transactional—due to the market competition and as a financial institution—and the relationship-based and social-mission-oriented organizational culture) - Business and Social Mission: Complementary (Social performance measures are manifested as the personal touches toward clients, which enable SE8 to keep their clients and ensure its business viability) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Christian spirituality is foundational for its social missions—that is, its core values [e.g., “acting in accordance with Christ’s love”] deriving from Biblical principles)	Multi-biographical: Shifting from balanced entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identity: A sense of calling to be a missionary (missionary-oriented founder) - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): A mother Christian NGO that emphasized the triple bottom line. Shifting to mixed commercial entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identity: Business experience through SE8 (Cambodian Christian CEO) - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): An investor
SE9	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., staff development vs. Fierce market competition) - Business and Social Mission: Complementary (Business provides lunch to factory workers from the poor background) - Spirituality and Business: Competing (An inappropriate business model employed by missionary-oriented entrepreneurs for targeting expatriate Christians; “Secular” identity opened up more possibilities of customers)	Multi-biographical: Shifting from mixed social welfare and spiritual entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identity: A sense of calling to be a missionary (missionary-oriented entrepreneurs) - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): A mother Christian NGO that was not supportive of the explicit expressions of faith, Its value-neutral director Shifting to single-minded business and social welfare entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Business experiences, Returnee, Non-Christian (a non-Christian returnee CEO with business experiences) - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Social investors
SE10	- Business and Social Missions: Competing (Social costs—e.g., capacity-building of employees; generous benefits such as medical insurances vs. Fierce market competition) - Business and Social Missions: Complementary (Business provides nutritional food to the Cambodian population; Purchasing most of raw materials directly from local farmers) - Business and Spirituality: Competing (Paying taxes appropriately according the Biblical principle puts SE10 in a disadvantageous financial position) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (Running business ethically and with integrity—according to Biblical principles—opened up an avenue for doing advocacy work toward the government)	Mixed commercial and social welfare entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Business and NGO experiences, Exposure to the encompassing view of God’s Kingdom - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): A mother Christian NGO that deemphasized spirituality
SE11	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (High social costs for helping and training sex workers; Low tech needs to be used for uneducated sex workers vs. Fierce market competition) - Spirituality and Social Mission: Complementary (The entrepreneur’s Christian motive for launching SE11; Church as integral part of reducing men’s demand for the sext industry)	Single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Solid conversion experience, Theological education, Church ministry experiences, Sense of calling to be a missionary, Social work experience - External Identity (External Accountability Pressures): Christian board, Christian donors
SE12	- Social Mission and Business: Competing (Social costs—e.g., generous benefit package and leave allowance vs. Fierce market competition; Drop-in-center’s [for sex workers] dependency on donors) - Spiritual and Social Mission: Complementary (The entrepreneur’s Christian motive for launching SE12; Launched a drop-in-center as a response to God’s call) - Spiritual and Business: Competing (Tension between trusting in God and marketing)	Single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneur - Enacted Internal Identities: Dramatic conversion, Sense of calling to be a missionary, Church ministry experiences, Prior exposure to the disadvantaged, Distressing personal experiences (background of coming from a difficult family) - External Identities (External Accountability Pressures): Christian accountability partners, Christian donors

Source: Author.

show the case-specific information and evidence and cross-case comparisons (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007). The critical realist framing was utilized to capture a precise causal mechanism in different individual contexts (Ackroyd 2009)—that is, variations—and “broader, cross-cutting patterns and generative mechanisms” across the cases (Kessler and Bach 2014, p. 183)—that is, patterns. Although I tried categorizing social entrepreneurs mainly according to Wry and York’s (2017) typology of social entrepreneurs, I did so “for locating organizations on a spectrum and identifying their salient characteristics rather than expecting them all to fit neatly into particular categories” (Leurs 2012, p. 717). Moreover, throughout the analytical process, I wrote theoretical memos on emerging ideas and insights from the analyses of individual social enterprises and from the cross-case analysis. I used Nvivo 12, a qualitative data analysis software, for the analysis.

4.2. Research Ethics

The ethical review committee of my current institution approved this study. I anonymized the names of the sample Christian social enterprises by using codes to prevent their identification. To ensure the anonymity of the sample social entrepreneurs and enterprises, I deliberately did not reference traceable sources, such as their websites and the literature on them (e.g., a memoir) in this paper.

5. Findings and Discussion

This section will present and discuss the findings. It will particularly examine what kinds of entrepreneurs (balanced, mixed, and single-minded entrepreneurs) the sample Christian social enterprises’ entrepreneurs were at the time of the fieldwork and how and why they had become those. However, one exception is SE6’s entrepreneur, who sold SE6 to its Cambodian employees in 2015. For this specific case, this study shows what kind of entrepreneur he was when he was a CEO and how and why he had become that. This section will start with balanced entrepreneurs, followed by mixed commercial entrepreneurs, and end with single-minded entrepreneurs (more specifically, single-minded commercial and social welfare ones and single-minded social welfare and spiritual ones). This section also compares the sample enterprises in the same sectors, which are in the different aforementioned categories, to examine why each one has ended up where it is. Finally, this section discusses how the findings relate to the theoretical framework.

5.1. Balanced Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurs of SE1, SE2, SE3, SE4, and SE5 can all be categorized as balanced entrepreneurs. In terms of their inner contexts, from the outset, they have all been financially self-sufficient through their earned incomes and have not depended on donors’ funds. More specifically, the legal statuses of SE1, SE2, and SE3 are businesses, meaning that they must pay required taxes as for-profit organizations. On the other hand, SE4 is an association, and SE5 is a unit of a Christian NGO, both of which do not need to pay taxes in the way for-profit organizations do, thereby reducing their financial burdens (

Table 3. Emphasis on institutional logics (balanced entrepreneurs).

	Timing	Social Mission	Spirituality	Business	Entrepreneur Type
SE1	During fieldwork	+++++ *	+++++	+++++	Balanced
SE2	During fieldwork	+++++	++++ (Stopped having daily Bible study because of busyness)	+++++	Balanced
SE3	During fieldwork	+++++	+++++	+++++	Balanced
SE4	During fieldwork	+++++	+++++	++++ (Not paying tax as an association)	Balanced
SE5	During fieldwork	+++++	+++++	++++ (Not paying tax as an NGO)	Balanced

* The greater the “+,” the greater the emphasis on the logic. Source: Author.

). These organizations both generate social value and run a commercially viable business as their dual core functions; therefore, they are considered “social enterprises” according to Alter’s (2006) typology.

In terms of outer environments, four out of these five entrepreneurs experienced fierce market competitions. Although employing the disadvantaged is their primary social mission as WISEs, social costs associated with practices such as fair wages, generous benefit and leave packages, closer supervision because of lack of skills, and staff development costs have been a major challenge for all of them, especially under fierce market competitions. Hence, from the perspective of compatibility (Besharov and Smith 2014; Thornton et al. 2012), a competing relationship exists between social mission logic and business logic. SE2 and SE5 were the first movers into café markets in their localities and thereby established a stable market share at the emergence of the markets, helping them survive the subsequent market competitions.

In terms of identities, they all have strong Christian backgrounds, whether it is the sense of calling to be a missionary, a genuine conversion experience, or transformative spiritual experiences by which they emphasize spirituality logic. Four out of these five entrepreneurs came from the disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e., distressing personal experiences), which led them to accentuate social mission logic out of their sympathy to the disadvantaged (Chandra and Shang 2017; Yiu et al. 2014). For example, SE4’s entrepreneur and her eight siblings grew up in Cambodia’s rural province and were destitute. After finishing grade eight, she left her province to work as a housemaid in one of the tourist towns. Her daily work was long, her wages were low, and she thought it would be like this all her life. Because of this distressing experience, she is now committed to hiring the disadvantaged, as the following interview quote indicates:

Researcher: ...initially it is difficult to hire somebody from the disadvantaged background. But have you ever thought about stopping hiring disadvantaged people because it is difficult…

SE4’s Entrepreneur: We don’t think we’ll stop, we still want to continue [hiring the disadvantaged] even if it’s difficult. You can train them for six months. We still support [them] because most of the people are from very poor backgrounds. They need jobs.

(14 March 2019, comments in brackets added)

Concerning spirituality and social mission logics, spirituality logic has complementary effects on social mission logic because these entrepreneurs’ strong Christian identities made them want to launch, maintain, and expand their social mission activities. SE3’s entrepreneur wrote the following in her memoir:

Taking root means making my home where God has called me to. I submitted to God and came back to [one of the rural districts in Cambodia] in September 2002. I sold my houses [in her home country] and made my home in this land... I came first as a missionary… and later as a full time “bussionary” (businessperson missionary)…, developing and building business ventures for profit among the villagers.

(comments in brackets added)

Additionally, because of their strong Christian identities, they also mobilize Biblical principles, which are conducive to helping the disadvantaged, thereby having complementary effects on social mission logic. SE5’s entrepreneur used Biblical leadership reflecting Christ’s love and forgiveness so that the disadvantaged who are prone to making mistakes—because of their lack of, for example, education, skills, and confidence—can pull themselves together and carry on:

…the leadership model that I tried to provide for them was one that was the opposite of the normal Khmer [Cambodian] leadership model, which is very hierarchal, powerful, and strong. So, I really tried to model Christ’s love and model the idea of forgiveness. And I think I used the word “second chances,” and that was something that I did a lot.

(Interview with SE5’s entrepreneur, 23 March 2017, comments in brackets added)

These entrepreneurs have been balanced entrepreneurs mainly because they have multiple role identities related to the triple bottom line and are under Christian boards of directors, Christian accountability partners, or mother Christian NGOs—that is, proximate contexts. Alternatively, the reason is that they have boards of directors, accountability partners, or mother NGOs that emphasize the triple bottom line. The former enacts their multiple identities to achieve the triple bottom line, and they are supported by their Christian boards of directors, especially for their commitment to spirituality logic despite fierce market competition. For instance, SE3’s entrepreneur stated, “I do have Pastor A with me, anything I do, I talk to her” (Interview, 11 March 2017). Additionally, because of her salient role identity as a bussionary (aforementioned), which emphasizes spirituality, business, and social mission logics and furnishes deep knowledge on each, she has reconciled all these three logics over the years (Tetlock 1986; Wry and York 2017).

Interestingly, although a competing relationship exists between business and social mission logics, SE1’s entrepreneur enacts his multiple role identities and reflexively navigates the terrains of his employees’ varying skill levels and his customers’ differing purchasing powers (Interview with SE1’s entrepreneur, 11 March 2016). More specifically, knowing the expectations of NGOs because of his prior experiences with NGOs, he differentiates catering services for NGOs and private companies. He provides low-skilled (likely student) employees to NGOs, whereas more competent (likely longer-term) employees are provided to companies. However, he charges cheaper fees from NGOs, which is actually part of the social missions of SE1. This indicates his commitment to the social mission of hiring student employees, which is underpinned by his distressing personal experience as a former student from the province (Chandra and Shang 2017; Yiu et al. 2014). He took this approach considering the difficulties (or social costs) entailed by hiring student employees, such as their lack of skills and mindset necessary for the service industry. Although the context of the catering industry is tough in Cambodia, this approach has contributed to SE1’s competitiveness in the industry. It has been indicated that “[b]cause salient role identities are associated with knowledge and competencies that are germane to pursuing social and financial aims, balanced entrepreneurs are well equipped to consider both as they develop an opportunity… to spot more nuanced, and potentially more novel, points of intersection between the two” (Tetlock 1986; Wry and York 2017, p. 450). Hence, this entrepreneur has skillfully struck the balance between the business imperative and social missions by enacting multiple role identities.

Meanwhile, entrepreneurs who are under boards of directors, accountability partners, or mother NGOs that emphasize the triple bottom line feel external accountability pressures to achieve the triple bottom line. For example, from the organizational structural perspective, SE5 could be dependent on funds from its mother NGO, where SE5 is a unit. However, SE5 was mandated to be profitable to cross-subsize the other social mission units of the NGO while being socially and spiritually impactful itself. Therefore, and interestingly, although its entrepreneur did not have any prior business experience (particularly experience to run a restaurant), she had to make do, more specifically, develop and enact her business role identity in the face of the external accountability pressures from the NGO. Mandinyenya and Douglas (2011) found that expatriate founders of social enterprises in Cambodia had learned the necessary skills to run social enterprises as they ran their enterprises. It was particularly challenging for her because starting a social enterprise entailed the intensive training of the disadvantaged (that is, a social cost). She now confessed:

I’ll tell you the first year was brutal because when you were starting an enterprise, the hours were long. I would unlock the door at six o’clock, working with staff, training staff, and we deliberately hired people who hadn’t had jobs before… So I had to train them for everything; things that you would think would be common sense but is not common sense to them because they don’t know it, they don’t come from that kind of background. And work was, so it was like at six in the morning to almost ten-thirty at night, so it entailed really long days.

(Interview, 23 March 2017)

To ease this, she was agile in bringing in necessary human resources—an expatriate intern from an undergraduate business program, an expatriate volunteer with a background in restaurant business, and four Cambodian chefs who graduated from a French cooking school (ibid.). Mandinyenya and Douglas (2011) found that expatriate founders of social enterprises in Cambodia mobilized their international network to bring the necessary human resources for their enterprises. After the launch, the entrepreneur was vigilant about the prices and quality of services in face of the increasingly fierce market competition; consequently, SE5 has provided various quality foods that are not too expensive to keep their customers (Interview with SE5’s entrepreneur, 23 March 2017). Unlike Wry and York’s (2017) theorization, although she did not have a role identity as a businesswoman (a restaurant manager, more specifically) per se, she made do with whatever resources and network was available and her hard work, agility, and vigilance. Hence, she virtually developed and enacted her business role identity in the face of the external accountability pressures from its mother NGO to make SE5 profitable while being socially and spiritually impactful.

5.2. Mixed Commercial Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurs of SE6, SE7, and SE8 can all be considered as mixed commercial entrepreneurs. They have all been financially independent of donors’ funds for their operations. More specifically, and in terms of their inner contexts, the legal statuses of SE6 and SE7 have been that of a business, whereas that of SE8 has been a microfinance institution (MFI), both of which need to pay taxes as for-profit organizations (Chou et al. 2006).

In the sphere of the outer context, all of them have experienced fierce market competition. Although SE6 and SE7’s primary social mission is to employ the disadvantaged as WISEs, social costs associated with practices such as fair benefits, closer supervision due to lack of skills, and staff development costs have been a large burden for them, especially under fierce market competitions in the café industry. For example, SE6 had to put a 40 percent cap on the ratio of the disadvantaged among their employees to maintain its service quality and branding (Interview with SE6’s entrepreneur, 17 March 2017), whereas SE7 had to put a 10 percent cap (Interview with one of the co-entrepreneurs of SE7, 22 March 2017) (

Table 4. Emphasis on institutional logics (mixed commercial entrepreneurs).

	Timing	Social Mission	Spirituality	Business	Entrepreneur Type
SE6	Early stage when the entrepreneur owned SE6	+++++	+++++	+++++	Balanced
	Later stage when the entrepreneur owned SE6	+++ (40% cap on the ratio of the disadvantaged)	+++ (More implicit expressions of spirituality adopted)	+++++	Mixed commercial
SE7	During fieldwork	+ (10% cap on the ratio of the disadvantaged; 10% of profits [instead of previously 2% of revenue] given back to community work)	+ (Only implicit expressions of spirituality adopted)	+++++	Mixed commercial
SE8	Previously	++++	++++	+++++	Balanced
	During fieldwork	+++	++	+++++	Mixed commercial

Source: Author.

). SE6 was the first mover into the café market in its locality and—thanks to its entrepreneur’s prior experience in marketing—launched massive and effective marketing strategies to form its branding from the outset, thereby establishing a stable market share at the emergence of the market. In contrast, SE7 came to Cambodia when cafés had already mushroomed and therefore had struggled financially, and indeed, they had been cross-subsidized from its operation in the country where it was first launched. As for SE8, tension has occurred between the pressures to be more efficient and transactional—due to the market competition with other MFIs and the nature of a financial institution—and its relationship-based and social-mission-oriented organizational culture derived from its mother Christian international NGO5 and its continuous presence as the chair of SE8’s board of directors (Interview with the chair of SE8’s board of directors, 12 March 2017). In summary, and from the viewpoint of compatibility (Besharov and Smith 2014; Thornton et al. 2012), all these entrepreneurs have experienced a competing relationship between social mission logic and business logic.

Some unique outer contextual factors have impacted SE7 and SE8. SE7 was originally founded in a socialist country in Southeast Asia, where Christianity has been banned in effect. This prevented SE7 from being explicit about their Christian spirituality, which became its modus operandi even when they expanded their operation to Cambodia where religious freedom exists (Table 4). Speaking of religion, although Cambodia allows for religious freedom, most its people are Buddhist. This has a ramification for SE8’s Christian spirituality. As they expanded its microfinance operation and hired a large number of new employees who were mostly Buddhist, the ratio of Christian employees decreased, thus making SE8’s organization-wide adherence to Christian spirituality weaker (Interview with the CEO of SE8, 12 March 2019) (Table 4).

In terms of identities, the entrepreneurs of SE6 and SE7 have strong Christian backgrounds, including theological education and active involvement in church. As for SE7, however, because of the socialist regime context, which prohibits it from being explicit about its Christian spirituality during and after its launch, its co-entrepreneurs’ spiritual identities regressed to be personal and secondary (Wry and York 2017). Meanwhile, both SE6 and SE7’s entrepreneurs have business backgrounds. SE6’s entrepreneur had a solid business background directly related to its operation (Interview with SE6’s entrepreneur, 17 March 2017), whereas SE7’s co-entrepreneurs had short-term business experiences that were not directly related to its operation; thus, they learned the café business “by doing” (Interview with one of the co-entrepreneurs of SE7, 22 March 2017). SE6’s entrepreneur also engaged in vocational training for the disadvantaged when he initially came to Cambodia as a missionary, thus having a social work identity. Consequently, when he started SE6, he was a balanced entrepreneur who achieved the triple bottom line. In contrast, the co-entrepreneurs of SE7 have been mixed commercial entrepreneurs, who enacted their business identities more strongly given the aforementioned socialist context.

In contrast, SE8 has had multiple entrepreneurs so far and is thus multi-biographical. It was originally part of a Christian international NGO that emphasized the triple bottom line under the expatriate missionary-oriented founder (Interview with the chair of SE8’s board of directors, 12 March 2017). Additionally, the majority of its Cambodian senior leaders, including the CEO, have been Christians (Interview with the chair of SE8’s board of directors, 23 March 2016).

Although tension exists between social mission logic and business logic, the entrepreneurs of these social enterprises have exercised their agency to bring about some syntheses between social mission, business, and spirituality logics in novel ways (Wry and York 2017) to the extent they could, despite inhibiting outer contextual factors, most notably, fierce market competitions. For example, to ensure the achievement of its social missions, SE8 uses various measures, systems, and policies (Interview with the chair of SE8’s board of directors, 12 March 2017). These include the social performance committee at the board level to ensure the fulfillment of social missions, the social performance unit to provide social services, the vulnerable service unit as part of the lending teams for small lenders, the policy to set aside five to ten percent of profits as community funds for SE8 and other NGOs’ social services, and SE8’s membership of the various associations of MFIs for maintaining its social missions. With these social performance measures, the core values of SE8 deriving from Biblical principles, such as “showing mutual respect for all” and “relating in an open and friendly way to all”, have been manifested as personal touches toward its clients, which functions as countermeasures against market competition with other MFIs that have decreased interest rates and unduly expedited the screening process of new applicants for micro credits. Consequently, SE8 has been able to keep their clients and thus ensure the achievement of business viability.

Meanwhile, SE7’s co-entrepreneurs’ commitment to social mission has its origin in their Christian motive, which derives from their solid Christian background. Because of this background, they have the heart for employees’ involvement in church, social missions, and a nurturing work environment (Interview with one of the co-entrepreneurs of SE7, 22 March 2017). However, the socialist context, in which SE7 was started, has not allowed explicit expressions of Christian faith in SE7. Therefore, in a reflexive manner, they have adopted an implicit Christian social business model based on Christian values to impact and improve employees’ lives as their form of operation. One of the co-entrepreneurs of SE7 illustrates how they synthesize business viability and social missions underpinned by Christian values, which is manifested as its core values of “gentle yet firm”:

…one of the core phrases is “Gentle but firm”, and that’s something that we use everywhere in our company culture because we find that in the Southeast Asian context, there’s a very strong authoritative, top-down, harsh leadership, which isn’t what we do at all. So we have something that we call, “Gentle but firm”… it is very much just our own take on servant leadership, and it’s our take on kindness, gentleness, and being reasonable people. But at the same time, this is where I think some not-for-profit businesses or Christian businesses can miss it a little bit. In the “gentle but firm” value, very clearly, here are the rules, here are the expectations, here’s how we expect you to behave. We’ll be here for you, we’ll help you, we’ll help you learn and be trained and grow. But if you break those rules, there’re consequences. And sometimes there are people who are trying to make businesses very social. Their hearts are too big, and they don’t want to say, “No, sorry, I gave you three chances. You’re out”. Because they say, “Oh, that person doesn’t have a job, they have a family, I can’t fire them” or whatever. But then what happens is your whole corporate culture doesn’t have consequences; in the end, I don’t think it’s helping the person. So if we can come alongside them and love them but also hold them accountable, very much like good parenting, then I think we’re better preparing them for the next job that they go to, whatever their career will be.

(Interview, 22 March 2017)

Servant leadership, which focuses on followers (Patterson 2003) and Biblical values (e.g., kindness, gentleness, and love) against the Southeast Asian context where the authoritarian and harsh leadership style is dominant, the business imperative of keeping up the standard, and the social mission of helping staff grow—in particular, to become responsible—converge on the core values. Similarly, SE6’s entrepreneur incorporated Biblical values into their organizational structure, culture, and practices.

However, their syntheses of multiple logics are still limited and have been diminished as in the case of putting a cap on the ratio of the disadvantaged among their employees. The entrepreneurs of SE6 and SE8 have been shifting from balanced entrepreneurs to mixed commercial entrepreneurs, particularly because of external accountability pressures (Table 4). SE6’s board of directors increasingly preferred to express faith through social impacts (Interview with SE6’s entrepreneur, 17 March 2017). Meanwhile, its social investors primarily looked at financial and social returns, but not spiritual impacts. Under such external accountability pressures and market competition, its entrepreneur’s role identity as a businessperson has been enacted more vigorously. The entrepreneur’s degree in evangelical applied theology also has some bearing on this shift. More specifically, after coming to Cambodia, he had increasingly come to the realization that the Kingdom of God was much larger than he thought and that what he had been doing was an integral part of it:

If we think about the Kingdom of God, rather than think of church, if we think of the Kingdom of God as being the whole expanse of God’s realm, it’s a huge place, and I always say that nothing is worthless in the big picture of the Kingdom. So sometimes, when I was doing secular work back in my home country, and when I was on a management training course, I would think, “Why am I doing this? What has this got to do with my faith?,” and years later, I would realize, especially when I came to Cambodia and started SE6, that some skills that I learned then were absolutely valuable at that point. So nothing is wasted in God’s economy. And so I just see it as everything being intertwined.

(Interview with the SE6’s entrepreneur, 17 March 2017)

Thus, although SE6’s entrepreneur had achieved the triple bottom line, he leaned toward the implicit expressions of spirituality, such as social missions as the manifestation of spirituality and the organizational culture reflecting Christian values. The encompassing view of God’s Kingdom does not distinguish the sacred from the secular, unlike Christian Gnosticism that dichotomizes human activities into the secular and the sacred (Miller 2001). The notion that captures this is Coram Deo, a Latin phrase that means “in the presence of God”, implying that whatever we do “in the presence of God” can be an act of worshiping God (ibid.). Thus, whatever we do or any human activities done “in the presence of God” have spiritual significance. This position does not necessarily consider Christian spirituality in the traditional and explicit senses—such as Bible studies, prayers, and worship services—as the primary logic of Christian social enterprises because whatever we do, including business and social mission activities, can be spiritual acts. This, in addition to external accountability pressures to be profitable, changed SE6’s entrepreneur from a balanced entrepreneur to a mixed commercial one to some degree (Table 4).

Although SE8 was founded by the Christian international NGO that emphasized the triple bottom line and the majority of their senior leaders have been Christians as mentioned, its shares have been increasingly bought by an investor who is albeit sympathetic to its Christian identity and supportive of its social missions. During the fieldwork, 80 percent of its shares were held by this investor (Interview with the chair of SE8’s board of directors, 23 March 2016). This was a plan agreed upon by the mother NGO, which had been a major shareholder, as it sought to use funds generated from this shift for its field offices in more needy countries (ibid). Consequently, their proximate environment in effect changed from the board of directors, in which the NGO’s director was the chair and thus had a significant influence over decisions, to the investor. Subsequently, it was completely merged into the bank owned by the investor in 20206. In this process, the current Cambodian CEO increasingly enacted his business role identity in the face of external accountability pressures from the investor, who ultimately expected financial returns, and progressively decoupled his personal identities related to Christianity and social missions (Interview with the CEO of SE8, 12 March 2019) (Wry and York 2017). As a result, the CEO changed from a balanced entrepreneur to a mixed commercial entrepreneur (Table 4).

In contrast, SE7’s co-entrepreneurs have been mixed commercial entrepreneurs throughout. However, the degree of its focus on business logic has increased in the face of its social investors and the market competition. The following interview quote with one of its co-entrepreneurs exhibits the tension between business and social missions as well as the primacy of business over social missions, and was about SE7’s decision to shift from two percent of revenue to ten percent of profits to give to community work:

That was a very hard decision for us. And basically, it came down to ten percent of profits. Well, it works very well, if you’re an established business in an established market; then that’s okay. But if you’re constantly looking at growing, for instance [the original country in which SE7 was launched] and then [Country B, into which SE7 first expanded its operation], then country B doesn’t make any money for three years or more. Then all those years that it’s losing money, but it’s also getting revenue. We were taking two percent of its revenue before you have positive cash flow… But then you opened up in Cambodia, and now the Cambodian branch has revenue, but it is nowhere near cash positive. So you’re taking money off the top before you have enough cash. It’s hard when you’re constantly investing heavily because it’s an expensive model of capital expenses to start up, and then you’re always kind of doing a new thing and nothing’s ever really quite sustainable. So it was okay. I like two percent of revenue because it was very clean, you know, very clean cut, like no fancy accounting needed, it’s just what revenue is. But it proved more and more difficult, especially when it’s taking longer for the company to become profitable. Some of our investors said, “We can’t give money if we’re losing money. We need to get [business] sustainability as the first step toward generosity”. In other words, you can’t be generous if you’re not sustainable.

(9 March 2017, comments in brackets added)

This illustrates that the co-entrepreneurs preferred the idea of two percent revenue because of their commitment to social missions, but had to choose the option of ten percent of profits because as a business entity, business sustainability needed to come before giving to community work. Because of the co-entrepreneurs’ business role identity and the social investors’ interest in the financial bottom line as external accountability pressures, their priority has further shifted from social missions to a business (Table 4).

Broadly speaking, SE6, SE7, and SE8 are for-profit organizations that make profits for their shareholders (investors) and create social value. Therefore, they can be categorized as “socially responsible businesses” according to Alter’s (2006) typology.

5.3. Single-Minded Commercial and Social Welfare Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurs of SE9 and SE10 can be categorized as single-minded commercial and social welfare entrepreneurs. In terms of their inner contexts, their legal statuses are business, which requires tax-paying as for-profit organizations. However, both were originally parts of the same Christian international NGO. In other words, they are spin-offs from their mother NGO.

In terms of the outer context, they face fierce competitions in their markets. The catering industry, the market to which SE9 belongs, includes unregistered small family businesses who do not pay taxes (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 14 March 2019). SE10 is also in a competitive nutritional product market where there are international competitors with high-tech and cheaper products, products subsidized by NGOs put SE10 in an unequal playing field, and their competitors use TV for advertising (Interview with the current Cambodian SE10 entrepreneur, 6 March 2017). Although hiring the disadvantaged is their major social mission as WISEs, social costs associated with such practices as capacity-building efforts for disadvantaged employees, coaching them, and generous benefits—including medical insurances—have been heavy burdens for both organizations. Hence, from the viewpoint of compatibility (Besharov and Smith 2014), a competing relationship exists between social mission logic and business logic.

Interestingly, for both organizations, business logic has complementary effects on social mission logic. SE9’s canteen services, which provide lunch for factory workers, are considered as their social mission (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 6 March 2017). Companies that run factories are not legally obliged to provide lunch to their workers. However, many of their workers are from the poor background; thus, even lunch would be an important nutrition source (ibid.). In contrast, by selling their nutritional products (e.g., soy milk), SE10 tried improving the health of Cambodians, especially that of children, and purchased most raw materials for their products directly from local farmers, thereby helping the local economy.

Initially, SE9 was launched as one of its mother Christian international NGO’s social enterprise projects in 1998 to hire women at risk, more specifically, women from the street, who graduated from the NGO’s employment training program. Because of the differences in organizational practices and cultures between the NGO and its social enterprises, the social enterprises became registered business entities with their board of directors with the NGO’s director as the chair. This direction was furthered in 2010 when the two social investors bought 80 percent of SE9’s share (while 20 percent was still kept by the NGO); thus, it virtually became independent of the NGO. Nevertheless, the NGO still functioned as a guarantor of SE9’s social missions at that time (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 14 March 2019). In 2016, those investors became the sole shareholders for SE9. However, they too are committed to social missions.

The case of SE9 shows how the multi-biographies of different social entrepreneurs involved in the different stages of SE9 have influenced their agency in choosing ILs, thereby shaping the different hybrid configurations of SE9, in their respective periods of influence. The entrepreneurs of SE9 have changed from mixed social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs to a single-minded commercial and social welfare one over time (

Table 5. Emphasis on institutional logics (single-minded commercial and social welfare entrepreneurs).

	Timing	Social Mission	Spirituality	Business	Entrepreneur Type
SE9	Previously	+++	++++	++	Mixed social welfare and spiritual
	During fieldwork	++++		+++++	Single-minded commercial and social welfare
SE10	During fieldwork	+++++	++	+++++	Single-minded commercial and social welfare

Source: Author.

). I will elaborate on how that happened below.

The entrepreneurs of SE9 had been Christians given that it was housed in the mother Christian international NGO. However, the NGO has not been very explicit about expressing Christian spirituality, which can be attributed to its expatriate founder’s attitude toward spirituality. Although the entrepreneurs of SE9 had business experiences, they were missionary-oriented, and the one before the current entrepreneur was a missionary commissioned and supported by churches. Because of such a background, they expressed their spirituality more explicitly, although the NGO that owned SE9 at that time had not been supportive of such explicit expressions of faith. In other words, although the entrepreneurs’ internal accountability pressures encouraged them to express their spirituality more explicitly, external accountability pressures from the NGO, who supervised them and later sat on its board of directors as the chair, were not supportive of such a practice. The entrepreneurs’ reflexivity was manifested, for example, as their emphasis on the restaurant operation that primarily targeted the expatriate Christian population in their locality and employed their social missions as a “cause marking” strategy. However, this “sympathy marketing” that appealed to such a small community had led to loss-making. In the context of the increasingly tough restaurant industry, commercially competitive services were necessary for profit-making. Overall, the design of SE9 was not for being competitive because the former entrepreneurs were not business-oriented enough to lead the business aspect. Hence, spirituality logic and business logic have a competing relationship, consequently not allowing SE9 to create social impacts of hiring a large number of the disadvantaged and thus to fulfill its social mission.

The succeeding director of the mother NGO, a Christian expatriate, was value-neutral in expressing spirituality. He followed the NGO’s tradition of the implicit expressions of spirituality. He reflexively considered that SE9’s business aspect should be strengthened to obtain more income and create more jobs because it needed to hire the disadvantaged from the NGO (Interview with the succeeding director of the NGO, 8 March 2017). Therefore, his choices of ILs were business and social missions. His following interview quote illuminates the tension associated with his choice:

Researcher: Is a part of the reason why the NGO did not impose the spiritual part on the NGO’s social enterprises because they’re for business, they create jobs, so that’s their mission, that’s the measures that they have to meet?

Director: I think it also became just expedient and practical, you know? Even like Christian MFI C7, there’s always a limit to their growth potential because we have to hire Christians and do this or that. We have to integrate all these sorts of things with development. So, with SE9, it was like we’d like to get some more income, we’d like to create some more jobs, let’s grow it, we need some outside people, and, yeah, practicality.

(8 March 2017)

In his internal negotiation, he had to form a reasonable tradeoff of letting spirituality go (Wry and York 2017).

Consequently, social investors were brought in to improve the business aspect in SE9 so that it could hire more numbers of the disadvantaged. Through his business connection, one of the social investors approached a Cambodian returnee (who left Cambodia as a refugee) from a Western country with a business background for the position as the next CEO. Although the social investors were Christians, they prioritized business experiences and therefore hired the current entrepreneur with a non-Christian background. This is because of the fact that finding a Christian with an appropriate CEO background for a social enterprise in predominantly Buddhist Cambodia is difficult and that the financial bottom line must be urgently met.

With no comparable spirituality with her predecessors, the current entrepreneur now describes SE9 as a non-Christian social enterprise (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 14 March 2016; 6 March 2017). Hence, her choices of ILs are business and social missions. When she was appointed as a CEO, this decision was supported by the board members and the social investors with an 80 percent share. The board members included the mother NGO with a 20 percent share, which had not been supportive of the explicit expressions of faith anyway. Because of this shift to less Christian-ness, such explicit expressions of faith as Bible study and prayer meetings vanished (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 14 March 2016). Therefore, the new SE9’s entrepreneur is considered as a single-minded social welfare and commercial entrepreneur.

Thanks to the business expertise that the social investors brought in and the current entrepreneur’s business experiences, SE9 is now one of the leading canteen service companies in Cambodia. Additionally, its current “secular” identity has opened up greater possibilities of customers (beyond Christians as major customers), whereas its former Christian identity limited customer options as seen (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 14 March 2016). Thus, one can see a competing relationship between spirituality logic and business logic, which has the ramification of not allowing SE9 to hire a large number of the disadvantaged. Moreover, customers use the services of SE9 neither because of its social missions nor its Christian missions but because of its professional services (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 6 March 2017). Because of this, SE9 is now moving further toward the direction of social missions through corporate social responsibility rather than social missions as one of the most fundamental organizational functions together with business viability (Interview with the current SE9’s entrepreneur, 14 March 2019). In other words, the current entrepreneur started enacting her business role identity more strongly given the fact that SE9 is a leading canteen service company with a high service standard. Hence, SE9 is transitioning from a “socially responsible business” to a “corporation practicing social responsibility” that makes profits primarily for shareholders (social investors) and uses social value creation activities to improve its public image for more sales (Alter 2006).

In contrast, the entrepreneurs (one previously an expatriate and one currently Cambodian) of SE10 have been mixed commercial and social welfare entrepreneurs throughout. As aforementioned, SE10 was also a spin-off from the same Christian international NGO that did not emphasize explicit spirituality. In other words, the external accountability pressures from this mother organization had not encouraged SE10’s explicit expressions of Christian spirituality, as in the case of SE9.

Additionally, its Christian expatriate entrepreneur was the most business-oriented manager of all the social enterprise spin-offs from the mother NGO. He ran a dairy product business back in his home country and had an NGO experience in Cambodia before his work with SE10. As SE10 had struggled financially, he focused on business logic. Such a focus, with his business background, is manifested in his thinking regarding the disadvantaged as “employees” rather than “beneficiaries” (Interview with the expatriate SE10’s entrepreneur, 21 March 2016). Therefore, he emphasized their capacity development (ibid.). Capacity development is a natural answer to the social mission to hire the disadvantaged and the business imperative to run the business sustainably.

Because of external accountability pressures, internal accountability pressures, and market competition, the expatriate entrepreneur’s business role identity became more vigorous and stopped the explicit expressions of faith within the organization, such as daily corporate prayers and weekly Bible studies (Table 5).

However, the expatriate entrepreneur adhered to the Biblical principle of appropriately paying taxes to authorities (Matt 22:21) and envisioned that once all businesses in Cambodia paid taxes properly, thus allowing the government to pay their employees’ salary, corruption would diminish. Thus, SE10 fully complies with the tax requirements for for-profit organizations. However, this puts SE10 in an unequal playing field as its competitors do not necessarily pay taxes associated with their business. Hence, a competing relationship exists between spirituality logic and business logic.

Meanwhile, its full compliance, or running the social enterprise ethically and with integrity, has opened up an avenue for doing advocacy work with the government. The expatriate entrepreneur states the following:

I have been invited onto a Governmental Working Forum (Ministry of Industry and Energy) “Reducing the Business Burdens of SMEs [small and medium enterprise] in Cambodia”. This working forum is working to increase the number of small and medium enterprises which will in turn, provide employment opportunities for Cambodians.

(comments in brackets added)

The expatriate director did advocacy work for the government as part of the holistic Christian mission, of which the transformation of government institutions is a part, as he states, “For me, the manifestation of Christian values is important. Profits are a stepping-stone to influence governments, NGOs, and universities” (Interview, 21 March 2016). Like SE6’s entrepreneur, who is a mixed commercial entrepreneur, the expatriate entrepreneur of SE10 had the encompassing view of God’s Kingdom, which does not distinguish the sacred from the secular. In other words, God is at work in all spheres of society, trying to bring about shalom, the idea from the Old Testament, whose root meaning is “to be whole, sound, safe” (Gort and Tunehag 2018; Snyder 2001, pp. 18–19). Many BAM advocates, including Johnson (2009) and Gort and Tunehag (2018), consider such social transformation as an integral part of BAM. Here, one can observe a complementary relationship between (implicit yet encompassing) spirituality logic and social mission logic (to transform governments to be sound).

5.4. Single-Minded Social Welfare and Spiritual Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurs of SE11 and SE12 can be considered single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs. In terms of their enterprises’ inner contexts, their legal statuses have been that of NGOs. Thus, they have depended on donor funding and do not need to pay taxes the way for-profit organizations do, thus reducing their financial burdens (

Table 6. Emphasis on institutional logics (single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs).

	Timing	Social Mission	Spirituality	Business	Entrepreneur Type
SE11	During fieldwork	+++++	+++++	+ (No vigorous business)	Single-minded social welfare and spiritual
SE12	During fieldwork	+++++	+++++	++	Single-minded social welfare and spiritual

Source: Author.

).

In the sphere of the outer context, SE11 and SE12 have experienced fierce market competitions. In particular, SE12’s café faced market competition in the already saturated café industry from its launch. Moreover, although its Western-style beauty salon was the first mover and could secure customers, after similar salons mushroomed in its locality, its salon started facing competition. In contrast, SE11 has faced market competition in the international apparel industry. SE12 and SE11’s primary social missions are to employ the disadvantaged and former sex workers, respectively, as WISEs. However, social costs associated with practices such as fair benefit and leave packages for the former and rescuing and restoring sex workers for the latter have been one of the inhibiting factors for profitability. Additionally, SE12 runs its drop-in-center for sex workers, most of whose operating budget comes from donors. Therefore, SE11 and SE12 are heavily social welfare organizations as their set up. From the perspective of compatibility (Besharov and Smith 2014; Thornton et al. 2012), and to sum up, a competing relationship exists between social mission logic and business logic.

In terms of identities, the entrepreneurs of SE11 and SE12 came to Cambodia as missionaries and had church ministry experience back in their home countries. Although they engaged in business for a few decades before coming to Cambodia, because they came as missionaries as their role identities, their business identities regressed to be personal and secondary as a consequence (Wry and York 2017). They also had social work experience back in their home countries, and social missions have been an integral part of their NGOs from the outset. Meanwhile, and in terms of proximate context, they have Christian accountability partners, or a Christian board of directors, and predominantly Christian donors from whom they face external accountability pressures. Therefore, they enacted spiritual and social mission role identities (Table 6).

Concerning spirituality and social mission logics, spirituality logic has complementary effects on social mission logic, as seen in these entrepreneurs’ responses to God’s call to launch, maintain, and expand social mission activities. SE11’s entrepreneur was involved in the social work program of his church back in his home country (Interview with SE11’s entrepreneur, 16 March 2019). As part of it, he and his wife visited Cambodia through its mission trip and later watched the TV program featuring trafficked children for the sex industry in Cambodia, thereby increasing their concern for these girls (ibid.). The social work program and his role within the program was to identify local organizations that the church can finance and support (ibid.). However, after getting to know about the trafficked girls in Cambodia, he asked church members to set up a program around trafficked girls in Cambodia, but no one volunteered to step in (ibid.). Thus, he and his wife prayed over it, felt that God led them to being directly involved in this work, and responded to it sacrificially (ibid.). He stated, “We chose to sell everything we have and cash out… and pretty much give everything to the ministry” (ibid.). One of the expatriate workers of SE11 under him testified as follows:

…many wealthy people donated to SE11, they even bought them [the entrepreneur and his wife] houses, you know, because they have no retirement savings. And they bought them two or three houses, and they sell it every time, and they give it to the work that is going on here.

(Interview, 14 March 2017, comments in brackets added)

Spirituality logic also has complementary effects on social mission logic by explicitly integrating spirituality into social mission activities. SE11’s entrepreneur considers church and its outreach program essential for reducing men’s demand for the sex industry (Interview with the SE11’s entrepreneur, 16 March 2019). For example, it offers a free workout center for men through the local church, and through their relationship with Christian staff members and Christ himself, some men have changed their minds and abstained from using the sex industry (ibid.).

For the relationship between spirituality logic and business logic, SE12 and SE11’s entrepreneurs exhibited different viewpoints and actions. The former experienced the tension between spirituality logic and business logic and indicated her ambivalent feelings toward advertising the café for profitability:

We haven’t done much advertising at all. Our weakness here probably is our advertising skills… I haven’t actually believed in advertisement, to tell you the truth. I sort of believe that if God wants people to come here, they’ll come, and I pray a lot. But in saying that I’m wondering if God wants us to go on a different way now and use advertisement. So we’re looking at that now, about the advertising, because it’s a very small business, and it should be a good business because the cooking is good, and the food is good, and the environment is beautiful, so it should be a good business, but it’s not. However, there’s something wrong with what we’re doing. Not the food, not the environment, there’s something wrong that we haven’t advertised enough, or I don’t know yet. We are just actually praying and asking God what to do here because we are not well known; see, it should be more known than it already is. But then, there are many cafés here anyway, there are thousands of them, you know. Oh goodness, it’s so hard to compete.

(Interview with SE12’s entrepreneur, 6 March 2017)

She has been praying to God for the financial needs of SE12 and witnessed that God has provided necessary resources (ibid.). Her biography as a born-again Christian and a former church leader, and the sense of God’s calling for her to come to Cambodia, all influenced her to select faith as the most important logic for running SE12. In particular, her dramatic conversion transformed her perspective completely from business-oriented-ness (as a former businesswoman) to God-focused-ness (Interview with SE12’s entrepreneur, 11 March 2019). As aforementioned, her business identity regressed to be personal and secondary given her enhanced spiritual and social mission role identities (Wry and York 2017).

As briefly above-mentioned, SE11’s entrepreneur also came to Cambodia as a missionary but had long-term business experience before that. Initially, he did not realize that the social reintegration process of assisting sex workers was critical and that having earned income from business activities associated with social reintegration could cross-subsidize and substantially expand its social mission activities of rescuing and restoring sex workers (Interview with SE11’s entrepreneur, 16 March 2019). However, he has increasingly noticed the importance of that (ibid.). Now, he has started placing more emphasis on business logic, including strategically marketing and branding the apparel products made by former sex workers in the international market by reenacting his business identity (ibid.). Consequently, he now enacts businesses, social mission, and spiritual role identities, thereby gradually becoming a balanced entrepreneur. This difference in the attitudes of using business strategies between SE12 and SE11’s entrepreneurs can be partly attributed to the following: SE12’s entrepreneur had prior business experience of running a few small apparel and food shops back in her home country, whereas SE11 had business experience with larger corporations, including being an executive for an advertising agency and being a sales and marketing executive for a manufacturing company in his home country, thereby readily employing ways of thinking and skills learned from his former careers.

Nevertheless, the income-generating activities of SE11 and SE12 are far from meeting their overall operation budgets; thus, they still rely on donor funding to a considerable extent. Hence, they are considered to be “non-profit organizations with income-generating activities” according to Alter’s (2006) typology.

5.5. Comparison between Christian Social Enterprises in the Same Sectors

This section compares the sample enterprises in the same sectors. More specifically, 5 out of the 12 sample enterprises run cafés, whereas 2 operate a catering business. I will first compare those that run cafés.

The enterprises that conduct a café business are SE2 and SE5 (balanced entrepreneurs), SE6 and SE7 (mixed commercial entrepreneurs), and SE12 (a single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneur). First, the inclination of their boards of directors, accountability partners, and mother NGOs have influenced their choice of ILs. The balanced entrepreneurs are under the Christian board of directors and the mother Christian NGO that emphasize the triple bottom line, thereby face external accountability pressures to fulfill the triple bottom line. In contrast, the mixed commercial entrepreneurs are under the Christian board and the social investors that emphasize business and social mission logics, thereby focusing on business and social missions. Additionally, the single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneur has Christian accountability partners and predominantly Christian donors, emphasizing social missions and spirituality.

Second, those enterprises that have not depended on donors and were first in the markets have achieved financial sustainability (namely, SE2, SE5, and SE6). Finally, the proactive employment of business strategies amid competitive markets is another key to financial sustainability or business viability. SE5 was watchful of the prices and quality of services to keep their customers, and SE6 utilized massive and effective marketing strategies to establish its brand. In contrast, the entrepreneur of SE12 felt ambivalent about marketing because her dramatic conversion experience made her think that praying for God’s provision was more important than relying on “worldly” marketing strategies, and her missionary identity that trusts in God’s provision is her role identity.

I will now compare enterprises that operate catering businesses (SE1 and SE9). The entrepreneur of SE1 is a balanced entrepreneur, whereas that of SE9 is a single-minded commercial and social welfare one. SE1 has Christian accountability partners who support Christian spirituality, whereas SE9 had been under the mother Christian NGO, which deemphasized spirituality, and has recently been under the social investors who focus on business and social mission logics. This difference in external accountability pressures for and against spirituality has partly led SE1’s entrepreneur to become a balanced entrepreneur. Moreover, it has led SE9 to recruit a CEO with a business background but without a Christian background, who is therefore a single-minded commercial and social welfare entrepreneur. The other factor that has made SE1’s entrepreneur a balanced one is his enactment of his multiple identities associated with previous business, Christian NGO and social enterprise experiences, distressing personal experiences, and being a committed Christian.

5.6. Return to Theoretical Framework

This section discusses how these findings relate to the theoretical framework informed by critical realism. One of the distinct features of this study’s theoretical model of how entrepreneurs choose ILs is the causal and relational interplay between the entrepreneurs’ internal accountability pressures underpinned by their personal and role identities and external accountability pressures from their proximate contexts (e.g., boards of directors) (Figure 2). Some balanced entrepreneurs of this study enacted their multiple role identities, and such enactment was supported by their Christian boards, accountability partners, or mother Christian NGOs, thereby enabling them to achieve the triple bottom line. The mixed commercial entrepreneurs tried to enact their multiple role and personal identities to bring about some syntheses between social mission, business, and spirituality logics. However, those syntheses have diminished over time because of external accountability pressures, particularly from their investors whose ultimate goal is to achieve the financial bottom line. The single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs enacted their role identities as missionaries more vigorously, and at the same time, their Christian board, accountability partners, and donors supported such a focus.

The other distinct feature of the theoretical model in relation to critical realism is how social entrepreneurs exercise their reflexivity in relation to outer contexts (Figure 2). A particularly pertinent outer context across the cases is market competitions. Different kinds of entrepreneurs reflexively and differentially deal with market competitions largely based on their role identities. The entrepreneur of SE1, a balanced entrepreneur, enacted multiple role identities to skillfully match the varied skill levels of his employees with the varying financial power of his clients, which partly contributed to SE1’s competitiveness in the industry. In contrast, the entrepreneur of SE10, a single-minded commercial and social welfare entrepreneur, enacted his business role identity more vigorously because SE10 had struggled financially. Hence, he focused on the capacity development of his “employees” (not “beneficiaries”). The entrepreneur of SE12, a single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneur, has kept enacting her missionary (spiritual) role identity in the face of market competition. Therefore, she prioritizes prayers rather than marketing.

6. Conclusions

This study first aimed to typologize different hybrid forms of Christian social enterprises in Cambodia by focusing on their entrepreneurs’ identities. The entrepreneurs can be categorized as balanced, mixed commercial, single-minded commercial and social welfare, and single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs. Broadly speaking, and based on Alter’s (2006) social hybrid model, the balanced entrepreneurs in this study had an affinity with “social enterprise,” the mixed commercial entrepreneurs were in congruence with “socially responsible business,” and the single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs were in harmony with “nonprofit with income-generating activities.”8

Using the critical realist ILs, this study also elucidated the causal and relational interplay between the agency of the entrepreneurs, which is underpinned by their biographies and thus their identities, and their multi-layered contexts. This is to reveal how and why they have created and sustained hybrid forms of their social enterprises.

In terms of inner context, social enterprises that did not depend on donors from the outset had achieved business viability or financial sustainability. Most of those enterprises chose to be for-profit organizations (private companies), whereas a few organizations chose to be an association or a unit of an NGO—not being funded by it, but rather financing it. Therefore, the initial decision to be financially independent—often by choosing for-profit organizational legal statuses—is important for business viability.

The most prevalent outer contexts are market competition. The majority of enterprises in my sample are WISEs, which hire the disadvantaged as their social missions. Social costs of rescuing, training, and hiring the disadvantaged have been major financial burdens for them, particularly in the face of market competition. For example, the mixed commercial entrepreneurs had to put a cap on the ratio of the disadvantaged among their employees to maintain their service quality. Hence, a competing relationship exists between business logic and social mission logic. A key for business viability amid market competitions is proactively using business strategies, such as marketing.

SE1’s entrepreneur, a balanced entrepreneur, enacted his multiple role identities to skillfully match the different skill levels of his employees with the varying purchasing powers of his customers, thereby fulfilling business viability and social missions. Wry and York (2017) predicted that balanced entrepreneurs can generate such a creative integration because they enact multiple role identities as well as knowledge and skills associated with such identities.

Similarly, the sample mixed commercial entrepreneurs enacted their multiple identities to bring about some syntheses between social mission, business, and spirituality logics in novel ways, despite fierce market competition. For instance, SE8’s entrepreneur created and used its social performance measures (social mission logic) and core values—based on the Biblical principles (spirituality logic)—as countermeasures against the market competition (business logic). Meanwhile, the co-entrepreneurs of SE7 harnessed the Christian principle of servant leadership and Biblical values (spirituality logic), that is, “gentle yet firm”, to maintain the business imperative of maintaining the service quality (business logic) and social missions to equip employees (social mission logic). However, the mixed commercial entrepreneurs’ creative syntheses diminished over time as spirituality and social mission logics were traded off against business logic owing to increased external accountability pressures favoring business logic and continued market competition (Wry and York 2017).

This study also indicates that spirituality logic has complementary effects on social mission logic. Except for the single commercial and social welfare entrepreneurs, all the other types of entrepreneurs exhibited their motives from the Christian faith to launch, maintain, and expand their social mission activities. Chandra and Shang (2017) highlighted that social enterprises may be created out of social entrepreneurs’ religious beliefs. Another type of effect is the integration of Christian spirituality into organizational practices and strategies. As shown, SE7 and SE8 use Biblical principles to counteract disadvantaged employees’ lack of skills and the market competition, respectively. Interestingly, SE11 uses the church as an essential strategy to reduce the demand for the sex industry.

Meanwhile, some outer contexts limit the explicitness of faith expressions. The co-entrepreneurs of SE7 needed to express their faith implicitly by integrating Biblical principles into their core values in the socialist context of the country where they first ran their café, which became its modus operandi even when they expanded its operation to religiously free Cambodia. Moreover, SE8’s organizational adherence to Christian spirituality became weaker as they hired more non-Christian employees in predominantly Buddhist Cambodia.

Additionally interesting is SE10’s expatriate entrepreneur’s implicit expression of faith through properly paying taxes to government authorities as an attempt to improve government institutions’ practices, such as paying their employees an adequate salary and implementing sound policies. Here too, implicit spirituality logic has a complementary effect on social mission logic (of advocacy).

Proximate contexts also matter. The external accountability pressures from Christian boards of directors or accountability partners have significantly influenced balanced entrepreneurs and the single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs. The balanced entrepreneurs have enacted their multiple identities, and external accountability pressures have particularly encouraged them to adhere to spirituality logic despite fierce market competition (Johnson 2009). Interestingly, the external pressures from its mother NGO, which emphasized the triple bottom line, facilitated SE5’s entrepreneur to develop and enact her business role identity, although she did not have any prior business experience. Meanwhile, the single-minded social welfare and spiritual entrepreneurs also had a Christian board of directors and predominantly Christian donors. Therefore, they faced external accountability pressures from them, which have made them enact spiritual and social mission role identities.

In contrast, the social investors, investors, and mother NGOs of the mixed commercial entrepreneurs and the single commercial and social welfare entrepreneurs have not encouraged their spirituality, particularly the explicit expressions of Christian faith. Rather, the external accountability pressures from them have made those entrepreneurs enact their business role identities and thus increasingly focus on business viability (business logic).

6.1. Theoretical Implications

First, the critical realist framing of ILs’ theorization, that is, adding contexts (particularly, proximate and outer contexts) to entrepreneurs’ agency and ILs, enabled the study to elucidate how structures influence the social entrepreneurs’ agency. This study contributes to the emerging empirical studies using critical realist ILs (e.g., Hu et al. 2020). Second, this study expanded the scope of Wry and York’s (2017) identity-based approach for topologizing social enterprise creation to the post-launch stages, which they actually recommend as further research, and demonstrated its usefulness for analyzing such stages.

6.2. Practical Implications

First, the financial independence of social enterprises from donor funds from the outset is conducive to business viability and financial sustainability. Second, Christian boards of directors or accountability partners (as proximate contexts) who emphasize spirituality are key for Christian social entrepreneurs to continue to be committed to spirituality logic. Moreover, Christian boards of directors, who emphasize the triple bottom line, may facilitate entrepreneurs to make do and achieve them, even if they lack prior business experience. The proactive employment of business strategies, such as marketing, is necessary for business viability in competitive markets.

6.3. Further Research

This study interviewed one to three respondents from each sample enterprise as it primarily sought to compare the sample Christian social enterprises. To elucidate how entrepreneurs choose ILs considering their changing contexts daily and how their followers perceive such actions, more intensive case studies on a few selected Christian social enterprises may be explored as a complementary study by employing a methodology such as an ethnographic approach. Moreover, similar to what was conducted by this study, a study that looks at how Christian social enterprises will shift their choices of ILs over the years would trace the causal and relational interplay between their entrepreneurs’ agency and their changing contexts longitudinally. Finally, studies on Christian social enterprises in countries with similar characteristics, such as Ethiopia and Rwanda, using critical realist ILs (and an identity-based approach as part of it) are recommended for cross-country comparisons.