Strategic Agility, Organizational Identity, and Performance Paradox in Nigerian Social Enterprises

This dissertation investigates the strategic management tension between organizational identity preservation and strategic agility requirements in Nigerian social enterprises, and the implications of this tension for organizational performance. Nigerian social enterprises increasingly face pressures to demonstrate both social impact and commercial sustainability, creating strategic paradoxes that challenge conventional single-objective strategy frameworks. Paradox theory, social enterprise strategy literature, and organizational identity theory provide the theoretical framework. The research employs an interpretive multiple-case design involving ten social enterprises operating across the South East, South West, and North Central zones in sectors including health, education, agriculture, and water access. Data were collected through sixty-three interviews with founders, managers, board members, and beneficiaries, combined with organizational document analysis and field observations over eighteen months. Paradox lens analytical methods guided the coding and interpretation process. Findings reveal that Nigerian social enterprises achieving both strong social impact and commercial sustainability navigate the identity-agility paradox through transcendent purpose framing, a strategy where commercial adaptations are communicated as identity-consistent actions serving the social mission rather than departures from it. Boards with mixed social and commercial expertise are identified as critical paradox management resources. The dissertation makes original theoretical contributions to paradox theory and social enterprise strategy by developing the Transcendent Purpose Model of social enterprise strategic agility. Keywords: strategic agility, organizational identity, social enterprises, paradox theory, Nigeria.