The Narrative Construction of Coffee for Peace: An Intertextual Analysis of a Social Enterprise

Abstract

This article shows the narrative construction of a social enterprise, Coffee for Peace, against the backdrop of historical conflict, cultural differences, and poverty in Philippine conflict areas. The article hinges on the principle of Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO), which holds that organizations are communicatively constituted. Within the CCO framework, narrative is employed as a construction device that determines how an organization is constituted because of the ability of narrative to organize events and experience from multiple settings. As org events happen in different interactional contexts, an intertextual analysis was used in making sense of narrative fragments from 45 articles about Coffee for Peace. The coding has shown six SE concepts that communicatively constructed Coffee for Peace, namely innovation, inclusive development, sustainability, training and mentorship, social value creation, and social impact. The article concludes that the communicative events and practices of Coffee for Peace constructed its identity as a social enterprise.