Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a new entrepreneurial genre, grounded on the values of social entrepreneurship and driven by technological innovation, known as Technology Social Ventures. Recognising the crucial role that technology plays in enabling solutions to new global challenges and the rise of new Social Economy paradigms as responses to the pitfalls of the neoliberal economic model, governments and policymakers have become increasingly committed to the institutionalisation of this new hybrid organizational form. In the European context, Italy pioneered the regulatory landscape with the introduction of the SIAVS model, which recognises the role of Innovative Startups with a Social Goal in fostering social good. The present work relies on organizational identity theory to empirically test the appropriateness of the SIAVS model in capturing the complexity of TSVs' hybrid identity. Through advanced topic modelling techniques built upon BERT deep neural network, I identified the organizational identity traits of a sample of 9,000 Italian Innovative Startups. The results show how companies currently registered as SIAVS present a strong orientation towards social value creation, while from a technological innovation standpoint they rely on traditional technologies, without a precise focus on innovative technologies. Hence, SIAVS cannot be classified as fully-fledged Technology Social Ventures, but rather belong to the broader category of Social Enterprises.
Nel corso degli ultimi anni è emerso un nuovo genere imprenditoriale, fondato sui valori dell'imprenditoria sociale e guidato dall'innovazione tecnologica, noto con il nome di Technology Social Ventures. Dato il ruolo cruciale della tecnologia nel trovare soluzioni alle nuove sfide globali e l'ascesa di nuovi paradigmi di economia sociale come risposte ai fallimenti del modello economico neoliberista, governi e policymakers sono sempre più impegnati nel processo di istituzionalizzazione di questa nuova forma organizzativa ibrida. Nel contesto europeo, l’Italia si è resa pioniera nel panorama normativo attraverso l’introduzione del modello SIAVS, che riconosce il ruolo delle Startup Innovative a Vocazione Sociale nella promozione del bene sociale. Il presente lavoro si basa sulla teoria dell’identità organizzativa per verificare empiricamente l'adeguatezza del modello SIAVS nel catturare l'identità ibrida propria delle TSVs. Attraverso avanzate tecniche di topic modelling basate sulla rete neurale BERT, sono stati individuati i tratti dell'identità organizzativa di un campione di 9.000 Startup Innovative italiane. I risultati mostrano come le SIAVS presentino un forte orientamento verso la creazione di valore sociale, mentre dal punto di vista dell'innovazione tecnologica si affidino a tecnologie tradizionali, senza un focus preciso verso tecnologie innovative. Pertanto, le SIAVS non possono essere classificate come Technology Social Ventures a tutti gli effetti, ma appartengono piuttosto alla più ampia categoria delle Imprese Sociali.
The process of institutionalisation of technology social ventures in Italy : testing the organizational identity of SIAVS through topic modelling
Pedullà , Gregorio
2020/2021
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a new entrepreneurial genre, grounded on the values of social entrepreneurship and driven by technological innovation, known as Technology Social Ventures. Recognising the crucial role that technology plays in enabling solutions to new global challenges and the rise of new Social Economy paradigms as responses to the pitfalls of the neoliberal economic model, governments and policymakers have become increasingly committed to the institutionalisation of this new hybrid organizational form. In the European context, Italy pioneered the regulatory landscape with the introduction of the SIAVS model, which recognises the role of Innovative Startups with a Social Goal in fostering social good. The present work relies on organizational identity theory to empirically test the appropriateness of the SIAVS model in capturing the complexity of TSVs' hybrid identity. Through advanced topic modelling techniques built upon BERT deep neural network, I identified the organizational identity traits of a sample of 9,000 Italian Innovative Startups. The results show how companies currently registered as SIAVS present a strong orientation towards social value creation, while from a technological innovation standpoint they rely on traditional technologies, without a precise focus on innovative technologies. Hence, SIAVS cannot be classified as fully-fledged Technology Social Ventures, but rather belong to the broader category of Social Enterprises.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/187355