Social enterprises, social inclusion and positive social change

Social enterprises – organisations that use market based-based activities to alleviate societal needs – and social entrepreneurs –individuals working for their own account to pursue prosocial goals to benefit others – work to address societal challenges such as social inequalities and exclusion. But how can social enterprises be a force for greater social inclusion and positive social change? This policy brief summarizes relevant evidence from two perspectives. First, from the perspective of the individual social entrepreneur by asking whether we may see greater inclusiveness in terms of who becomes a social entrepreneur. This perspective also explores whether social and commercial entrepreneurship may compete for the same entrepreneurially talented individuals. Second, from the perspective of the organisation, i.e. the social enterprise, by asking what are the mechanisms and strategies through which social enterprises may stimulate positive social change towards inclusive societies

Entrepreneurial orientation and philanthropy in SMEs.

The paper analyses the entrepreneurial orientation – philanthropy link in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). We find that SMEs that score highest on entrepreneurial orientation construct, those that have foreign owners, and those that are larger, are also most likely to declare their commitment to philanthropy. Our results are based on confirmatory factor analysis combined with regression analysis, using a representative survey of SMEs from Lithuania. Our findings that the most entrepreneurial firms are alsothe ones most involved in philanthropy shed light on the micro foundations of the model of development that emphasises consistency between the business initiative and the social initiative.philanthropy; entrepreneurial orientation; SME; foreign ownership; slack resources; Lithuania;

For Benevolence and for Self-Interest: Social and Commercial Entrepreneurial Activity across Nations

We conceptualise social entrepreneurship as a source of social capital which, when present in the environment, enhances commercial entrepreneurship. We also argue that social entrepreneurship should be recognised as a second form of Baumol's (1990) productive entrepreneurship and that it will therefore compete at the individual level for resources with commercial entrepreneurship. Unlike institutional void theory, we see social entrepreneurship as conditional on institutional quality, but consistent with the institutional void perspective we see it as filling the gaps where government activism is lower. These arguments motivate our hypotheses that we test and largely confirm applying multilevel modelling. Our analysis is based on population-representative samples in 47 countries (the 2009 GEM dataset).social capital, social entrepreneurship, institutional theory, resources, socio-cognitive theory

Context and social enterprises:which environments enable social entrepreneurship?

Societal challenges such as inequalities, poverty, poor health and environmental degradation are growing. Social enterprises – organisations that use market based-based activities to alleviate societal needs – and social entrepreneurs –individuals working for their own account to pursue prosocial goals to benefit others – can help to address such societal challenges. But how can social entrepreneurship be supported through policies and other support measures? To start answering these questions, we explored which environments enable social entrepreneurship across countries globally and across European regions. We did so by taking an institutional perspective, considering (1) formal institutions such as regulation, the welfare state and the rule of law, (2) informal institutions including cultural values and norms, social capital and religiosity, as well as (3) the alignment of formal and informal institutions. We also examined similarities and differences with commercial entrepreneurship to help start understand whether both types of entrepreneurship benefit from similar contexts, or whether there may be competing effects

Environmental innovation and firm performance:How firm size and motives matter

There is limited understanding of the precise circumstances under which environmental actions-such as environmental innovation-contribute to firm performance. Building on the resource-based view and on stakeholder theory, this study argues that the general positive effect of environmental innovation on financial performance varies significantly with firm size and the motives underlying a firm's engagement in environmental innovation. Integrating survey data and lagged annual account data on 1761 Flemish companies, we find that larger firms benefit financially from environmental innovation driven by regulation or industry codes of conduct, while smaller firms benefit from environmental innovation introduced in response to customer demand. While it is increasingly accepted that environmental innovation relates positively with firm performance, the current study highlights important boundary conditions of this relationship

Beyond cultural values? Cultural leadership ideals and entrepreneurship

This paper offers a fresh perspective on national culture and entrepreneurship research. It explores the role of Culturally-endorsed implicit Leadership Theories (CLTs) – i.e., the cultural expectations about outstanding, ideal leadership – on individual entrepreneurship. Developing arguments based on culture-entrepreneurship fit, we predict that charismatic and self-protective CLTs positively affect entrepreneurship. They provide a context that enables entrepreneurs to be co-operative in order to initiate change but also to be self-protective and competitive so as to safeguard their venture and avoid being exploited. We further theorize that CLTs are more proximal drivers of cross-country differences in entrepreneurship as compared with distal cultural values. We find support for our propositions in a multi-level study of 42 countries. Cultural values (of uncertainty avoidance and collectivism) influence entrepreneurship mainly indirectly, via charismatic and self-protective CLTs. We do not find a similar indirect effect for cultural practices

Moving on from nascent entrepreneurship:measuring cross-national differences in the transition to new business ownership

Nascent entrepreneurship and new business ownership are subsequent stages in the entrepreneurial process. We illustrate how information from the largest internationally harmonized database on entrepreneurship, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project, can be used to approximate the entrepreneurial process. We make a methodological contribution by computing the ratio of new business ownership to nascent entrepreneurship in a way that reflects the transition from nascent to new business ownership and provides cross-nationally comparable information on the efficiency of the entrepreneurial process for 48 countries. We report evidence for the validity of the transition ratio by benchmarking it against transition rates obtained from longitudinal studies and by correlating it with commonly used entrepreneurship indicators and macro-level economic indices. The transition ratio enables future cross-national research on the entrepreneurial process by providing a reliable and valid indicator for one key transition in this process

The influence of socio-cultural environments on the performance of nascent entrepreneurs:community culture, motivation, self-efficacy and start-up success

The importance of informal institutions and in particular culture for entrepreneurship is a subject of ongoing interest. Past research has mostly concentrated on cross-national comparisons, cultural values and the direct effects of culture on entrepreneurial behaviour, but in the main found inconsistent results. We add a fresh perspective to this research stream by turning attention to community-level culture and cultural norms. We hypothesize indirect effects of cultural norms on venture emergence: Community-level cultural norms (performance-based culture and socially supportive institutional norms) impact important supply-side variables (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial motivation) which in turn influence nascent entrepreneurs' success in creating operational ventures (venture emergence). We test our predictions on a unique longitudinal dataset, tracking nascent entrepreneurs' venture creation efforts over a five-year time span, and find evidence supporting them. Our research contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of how culture, in particular perceptions of community cultural norms, influences venture emergence. Based on these findings, we discuss how venture creation efforts can be supported. Our research highlights the embeddedness of entrepreneurial behaviour and its immediate antecedent beliefs in the local, community context

The state of social entrepreneurship in the UK

This SEFORÏS policy report summarizes key figures and trends about social entrepreneurship in the UK. It includes a description of the sector including dominant forms of social enterprise in the UK and an overview of the context and support organisations for social enteprises in the UK including access to finance. The report also characterizes innovation by UK social enterprises and how they seek to achieve and measure social impact. Who should read this report? It is written for policy makers, social enterprises support organisations and social enterprises who want to get an overview of social enterprise in the UK