The paper is crucial now because “hybrid” ventures are moving from the margins to the mainstream of entrepreneurship, while skepticism about purpose led models still lingers in many investment and partnership decisions. Within Sustainable Business Models, the study speaks directly to whether dual value creation can be structurally embedded into a venture’s model without undermining its growth logic.
The authors examine the universe of Italian “Innovative Startups” registered under national legislation and identify “social startups” through four formal impact related qualifications, including B Corp and Benefit Corporation type status and other Italian legal forms. They then estimate the relationship between social startup status and growth using multiple empirical lenses: large cross-sectional samples, a multiyear panel, and a matched panel that pairs social ventures with comparable non-social ventures to reduce selection effects. Performance is captured in metrics that translate cleanly to academic and executive audiences, namely year over year revenue and employee growth.
The core result is notably optimistic and also analytically grounded: social startups do not exhibit a statistically significant growth disadvantage. Across specifications and samples, social startup status is not associated with lower revenue growth or lower employment growth, suggesting that the dual mission is compatible with standard scaling dynamics in this context. The authors interpret this through imprinting, signaling, and human capital mechanisms: ventures founded in an era of rising sustainability expectations may be primed to pursue hybridity, formal impact qualifications can act as credible legitimacy signals, and the qualification process can accelerate the development of impact-related capabilities. For students, this supports a mindset shift away from assuming a built-in penalty for purpose and toward treating sustainability as a design discipline in which governance, capabilities, and credibility can actively shape performance outcomes.
For practice, the paper equips corporate partners, investors, and ecosystem builders with a clear implication: impact-oriented ventures can be assessed as scalable counterparts rather than exceptions that require financial concession. It also strengthens the case for policy and ecosystem instruments that recognise and de risk verified hybridity, such as targeted incentives, procurement pathways, or impact linked financing structures. Finally, it reframes certifications and legal forms from branding to infrastructure: when they function as credible commitments and capability builders, they become part of the business model architecture that supports value creation, value capture, and value distribution at scale.
