Using social media for opportunity exploration in social enterprises: Sensemaking and signaling perspectives

This paper investigates how social enterprises leverage social media (SM) for opportunity exploration. Using a multiple case study design, we conducted 51 interviews across 15 South Korean social enterprises and applied the Gioia methodology for thematic analysis. Drawing on sensemaking theory, our findings highlight the central role of public SM platforms, particularly Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube, in enabling both individual and collective sensemaking around social problems and potential solutions. We show that individual sensemaking is supported through scanning of content posted on external actors' SM profiles, while collective sensemaking occurs via sourcing interactions with external actors on SM. Additionally, anchoring signaling theory, we show how social enterprises strategically manage their own SM content to communicate their capabilities and identity, including those of their founders, to an external audience, thereby encouraging their engagement in the collective sensemaking process. Our study contributes to developing an in-depth understanding for social enterprises to utilize SM for opportunity exploration, distinguishing between opportunity identification and evaluation stages, and outlining the associated challenges. • Social enterprises (SE) use social media (SM) for opportunity identification and evaluation. • SM enables both individual and collective sensemaking of social issues and possible solutions. • SE pursue individual sensemaking through scanning of content published by others on SM. • SE pursue collective sensemaking via sourcing of interactions on SM. • SE use own SM content to signal identity and capabilities, encouraging external participation in collective sensemaking.