Eugenia Rosca and co-authors win the ISIRC Best Paper Award

Eugenia Rosca and co-authors Addisu Lashitew, Lydia Bals, Feigao Huang and Wendy Tate have won the Best Paper award at the 14th International Social Innovation Research Conference (ISIRC) held in September in Nova Scotia, Canada. They received the award for the paper titled ‘Growing pains: Legitimacy and Resource Dependance in Social Businesses in Latin America’.

Eugenia Rosca is an assistant professor within the department of Operations (OPERA) of the Faculty of Economics and Business. Her research explores mechanisms, enablers and contingencies for social and environmental impact creation in global supply chains.

The paper

In their paper, Rosca and co-authors investigate the growth challenges of social businesses in developing countries using qualitative data of more than 30 enterprises in Colombia. The results revealed how the novelty of social business practices in Colombia exposed social enterprises to legitimacy deficit, increasing their dependence on foreign resources. The study sheds light on the emergence of mission drift in social businesses by unpacking how the search for legitimacy and resource autonomy leads to different growth paths.

The conference

ISIRC is the world’s leading interdisciplinary social innovation research conference. The theme for 2022 was Leading Change Through Capacity Building for Social Innovation. The conference is hosted annually by different universities in Europe and North America. This year it was organized by Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada, and was attended by participants from more than 70 countries.

Questions? Please contact Eugenia Rosca.