Social Purpose: New Concept, New Pathways?

This chapter is a commentary on social purpose to draw out its conceptual characteristics and engage scholarship that generates impact. We position social purpose within the fragmented management literature on purpose as emphasizing the embeddedness of companies within society and their relationships with stakeholders. This raises several vital questions for continued research: (1) Is social purpose more compatible with certain organizational forms?; (2) How does social purpose align across societal and organizational contexts?; and (3) How much do organizations need to change for social purpose? Addressing these questions requires more clarity about the conceptual characteristics of social purpose, which we position as collective, contextual, adaptive, substantive, normative, and focused on ends. It is the aim of the chapter that the conceptual strengthening it proposes will contribute to the continued evolution of social purpose.