The process of hybridization in a for-profit company : the case of Symington Family Estates

• Autor(a) principal: Xavier, Maria Leonor Pinto da Gama Lobo
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/29743
• topic: Process of hybridization; Corporate social responsibility; Corporate identity; B Corporation; Symington Family Estates; Processo de hibridização; Responsabilidade social da empresa; Identidade empresarial; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

For-profit organizations increasingly recognize the need to redesign their businesses in an effort to accomplish more than simply maximizing revenue, desiring a hybrid identity that aligns profit with social/environmental purposes. This study aims to demonstrate how a for-profit can engage in a process of hybridization – the undertaking of necessary actions to integrate social/environmental concerns into the organization’s core. Building on existing literature, the reader will move from theory to practice through an analysis of Symington Family Estates (SFE), a renowned 137-year-old family business, port wine and Douro wine producer and certified as a B Corporation, making it a sound company upon which to conduct this analysis. Particularly, the analysis focuses on the process of design and implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) supported by Corporate Identity (CI), which enables that CSR becomes an integral part of the company’s CI, guaranteeing its place at the heart of the business. Additionally, it shows how B Corporation membership not only allows further development of CSR mission, but also improves its establishment in the company’s identity. This study can assist managers who intend to pass through a similar process by offering a multi-step process analysis, transversal to the whole company. It allows the guidance of the decision-making process toward more coherent choices in the direction of hybridity, based on a real-life example that provides meaningful insights on the matter. Indirectly, SFE passed through the stages present in the theoretical models, to reach a point where its business is used as a force of good.