Do Social Startups grow like other startups? Evidence from Italy

Social Startups are hybrid organizations that aim to make a positive social or environmental impact in addition to financial returns. Since Social Startups work toward realizing social or environmental returns, they can struggle in achieving their financial goals. By leveraging the Italian legislation and the B Corp regulation and combining imprinting and human capital theories, this work examines whether Social Startups achieve different economic growth than other startups. Using a longitudinal sample, this study finds that Social Startups perform as well as others in terms of revenue growth and number of employees growth, notwithstanding their hybrid nature.