In search of the right fusion recipe: the role of legitimacy in building a social enterprise model

Social enterprises, as typical hybrid organisations, are embedded in a plural institutional environment in which some stakeholders regard achieving social goals as fundamental, while others see economic profit as the priority. A great challenge for social enterprises is dealing with the conflicts resulting from the diverse expectations of stakeholders. Based on the existing works on organisational legitimacy and the social business model, we propose a legitimacy‐based social enterprise model composed of three main phases, namely, legitimacy proposition, legitimacy strategy planning, and legitimacy strategy implementation. Our model is meant to serve as an effective legitimacy‐building tool for social enterprises of various kinds.