The Entrepreneurship Process in High-Performing Hybrid Organizations : Insights from Diamond Cab

In the midst of the mainstream taxi business that is driven by profit-maximizing operators and taxi drivers, social innovators are breaking the established model by creating a specialty taxi market that serves a neglected market, i.e., the elderly, the disabled and wheelchair users, using an alternative compensation model and novel taxi design, as well as balancing social and business goals. This chapter summarizes a study of Diamond Cab, perhaps Hong Kong’s (China’s) first and most successful social enterprise, that has created a specialty taxi market from the ground up and quickly gained legitimacy in the new market. The study proposes several factors that explain the success of the social enterprise: a focused strategy, social design orientation, social bricolage, and informal and formal advice networks, as well as biographical variables including personal values, traits, and distress. It concludes with implications for theory, practice and policy making.