The Help-Seeking Preferences of Participants in Social Enterprises: Does Control Matter?

Research on social enterprises has primarily emphasized organizational performance and social impact, while participants’ experiences remain underexplored. This study first conducted a scoping review of the current social enterprise literature and finalized 69 empirical studies to identify variability in participants’ roles, outcomes, and experiences across nonprofit and for-profit social enterprises. The review showed that participants’ involvement in decision-making processes fosters ownership and autonomy. Building on this insight, an online experiment examined how participants’ perceived control over service selections influences their help-seeking preferences across social enterprise types. The findings reveal that the perceptions of organizational type and control over service decisions significantly affected participants’ willingness to engage with and recommend social enterprises. Participants were more likely to recommend for-profit social enterprises when they perceived greater control, although the importance of control decreased when participants trusted the service provider’s expertise. These insights offer valuable implications for designing participant-centered approaches in social enterprises.