International Journal of Business and Management; Vol. 13, No. 11; 2018 ISSN 1833-3850 E-ISSN 1833-8119 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 142 An Italian Business Model for Engaging Organisations to Social Wellness: A Focus on the for Benefit Companies Maria Antonella Ferri 1 & Maria Palazzo 2 1 Universitas Mercatorum, Italy 2 Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy Correspodence: Maria Palazzo, Università degli Studi di Salerno, Italy. E-mail: mpalazzo@unisa.it Received: July 27, 2018 Accepted: September 26, 2018 Online Published: October 12, 2018 doi:10.5539/ijbm.v13n11p142 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v13n11p142 Abstract In 2015, a new kind of company was introduced by law in Italy: the forBenefit Company (fBComp). Such kind of firms is characterized by a relevant novelty: they are for-profit companies whose statute explicitly recognizes the impact of managerial decisions on the wellness of society as well as on shareholders. This study focuses on fBComps as organizations which bases their survival on social legitimacy. Such public recognition can be achieved through creating relationships with social and economic actors (Golinelli, 2010). The objective of the current paper is to open up to a scientific and methodological discussion about the contribution that the social behavior of a company can give to its sustainable survival in light of the logic of diffused value co-creation. The study analyzes the fBComp as a new “social” business model (SBM), which evolves and goes far beyond the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) phenomenon. This topic posits some main research questions: is that a new form and method for value-production and distribution? How does it affect existent corporate governance logics? Results illustrate how this business model operates in practice, or, in other words, the practical applications for the concept of business for-benefit (Rawhouser, Cummings, & Crane, 2015). By conducting a desk analysis, based on a content analysis, using the results of the first Italian Report on fBComp, the contribution draws a portrait of this business model’s main features and explains how or if it impacts management practices, shareholders and other kind of stakeholders. Keywords: forBenefit, social legitimacy, isomorphism, consonance, social value co-creation, sustainability, stakeholders 1. Introduction During the twentieth century, for-profit corporations have been considered a kind of legal, static creation of laws, sustained by jurisprudence. Recently, however, the distinction between for-profits and non-profits is not anymore so clear. During the financial crisis, organizations have been attacked for their unfair relationship to the whole society (Hiller, 2013). For this reason, some entrepreneurs, managers and governments have become more open to rethinking the traditional corporation (Murray, 2012). From this openness has sprung an impassioned social enterprise movement and within the social enterprise world, we focus primarily on the benefit corporation model. Specifically, we argue that for-profit companies nowadays work along a scale of conducts in which they disregard, accept, or embrace social goals. And, in the same way, also “non profits firms” have assumed some tools of for-profits in support of their social aims. Thus, it follows hybrid forms of organizations that have blurred the lines between private sector and social orientation. The most noticeable of the hybrid units are For Benefit Corporation o For Benefit Company, whose chase of profit is secondary to, or comparable with, their gain to generate a public value. This organizational diversity proposes that forms of organization need to be considered not as receptacles of assets but as legal signs that drive the strategic conduct of markets.