Communicating for Sustainable Development. How Social Enterprises Aim at Differentiating Themselves Online from Profit-Maximizing Competitors

Abstract

Sustainable development is the pressing issue of our time. One of many goals within sustainable development is to transform lifestyles and the economy with sustainable production and consumption patterns. Social enterprises are seen as an organizational form with transformational potential for such sustainable patterns. In this paper, we analyzed social enterprises’ contents on various online communication channels to identify how they position themselves as more sustainable organizations with aims and values that differ from the profit-maximizing sector. We conduct a qualitative content analysis of the strategic communication of five successful social enterprises from Germany. Our results show that social enterprises use distinctive characteristics in their communication that differentiate them from the profit-maximizing sector and that are also reflected in the literature and in framing and signalling theory. Social enterprises clearly relate to their sustainability and provide recipients with tips on how to consume and live more sustainably but also frame themselves as “better” alternatives and change makers.