Exploring the Influence of Work Integration Social Enterprises on Consumers through Differentiated Customer Value Proposition

In the endeavour towards an inclusive society, work integration social enterprises (WISEs) play an important role in workplaces and labour market. Customers of WISEs are an underexplored field, and thus, this study looked at the influence of WISEs on customers using the concept of customer value. It deployed qualitative and quantitative study of two cases of WISEs in the Dutch agriculture and food industry. Market basket analysis was conducted to find interactions between customer characteristics and customer values. The results of our study show that taste as a functional value is a minimum requirement as well as a unique selling proposition for these two cases. The fact that they are a WISE was presented at different explicitness levels to customers: sometimes with a direct statement, other times with a phrase or visual hinting at this social aspect. Customers not always received this message or misinterpreted it as the WISEs intended. The results also indicate that products from these two cases are not associated with lower quality despite findings by earlier studies on socially oriented organisations. However, it is yet to be explored how the general Dutch population perceives the products and services of WISEs.