Hybrid Organizations with Social and Business Goals. Ethnographic Analysis of a Young Mother Supporting Café from Budapest

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Abstract

Social inequalities are present in capitalist economies, which are moderated by welfare states: socially and economically vulnerable social groups are supported by state benefits. Social enterprises ideally combine social aims with entrepreneurial spirit, and provide financially sustainable solutions for social problems with enduring enterprises. Social enterprises are supposed to be win-win solutions: they provide care for people in need, while they also operate as small or medium-sized enterprises within capitalism. However, there is growing criticism towards social enterprises, as they may replace state support and this way reinforce neo-liberal ideology. While it is obvious that social problems can only partially be solved by well-intentioned social entrepreneurs, not only because of their size and the fact that their social impacts tend to be local and limited, but also because the supportive mechanisms from governments and from supranational bodies (such as the EU) push the large majority of these social enterprises towards neo-liberal operation. The paper presents a highly successful social enterprise which aims to support young mothers by providing a mother-friendly and child-friendly space in order to reduce social isolation. A four-month field study, including participant and non-participant observation, interviews with guests, the founder, and a manager constitute the empirical base of the analysis. The main research question is how and to what extent the social enterprise improves the target group’s everyday life and what limits are inherent to this model. Can this social enterprise contribute to solving social problems connected to motherhood? Does the market-imperative (the neo-liberal discourse) decrease the social impact or not?