Prosociality in business: a human empowerment framework

This study introduces a human empowerment framework to better understand why some businesses are more socially oriented than others in their policies and activities. Building on Welzel’s theory of emancipation, we argue that human empowerment—comprised of four components: action resources, emancipative values, social movement activity, and civic entitlements—enables, motivates, and entitles individuals to pursue social goals for their businesses. Using a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs from 43 countries, we report strong empirical evidence for two ecological effects of the framework components on prosociality. We find that human empowerment (1) lifts entrepreneurs’ willingness to choose a social orientation for their business, and (2) reinforces the gender effect on prosociality in business activity. We discuss the human empowerment framework’s added value in understanding how modernization processes fully leverage the potential of social business activities for societies

Resource bricolage and growth of product and market scope in social enterprises

This research aims to understand how resource bricolage strategy plays a role in the growth of social enterprises in terms of their product and market. Based on interviews with nine social enterprises, our exploratory finding suggests that social enterprises often employ both internal and network resources in the process of making do. We further explore the relationship between the form of resource utilisation and the nature and scope of activities that the social enterprises embark upon, and find that only those relying on both internal and network bricolage are able to expand into new markets utilising newly developed products. We also find that social enterprises relying on only internal resources can reach the same point through incremental improvisation, by first moving towards either product extension or market expansion, before then embarking on the other. This research contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature by enhancing our understanding of the relationship between resource bricolage strategy and growth of social enterprises through product/ market scope in a penurious environment. The findings of this research also have implications for social enterprise managers and policy makers in utilising their resources and responding to environmental opportunities and challenges

Cornerstones of change: revisiting and challenging new perspectives on research in entrepreneurship education

SCOPUS: ch.binfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Expert capital and perceived legitimacy: Female-run entrepreneurial venture signalling and performance

Research has shown that female entrepreneurs face unique barriers to entrepreneurial success, such as procuring funding and being perceived as credible. Limited past theory has addressed how these challenges can be met effectively by female-run entrepreneurial ventures. As a result, effective strategies for female entrepreneurs to overcome them are unclear. To address the need for research in this area, the authors use signalling theory to guide an empirical study utilizing panel study data based on 711 entrepreneurial ventures (334 female-run; 377 male-run). Signals perceived by outsiders pertaining to the risk preference, legitimacy and social capital of female-run ventures are examined and linked to venture funding, net worth and longevity outcomes. The results, based on non-parametric analyses and statistical modelling, suggest that expert capital (social capital from experts) leads to perceptions of higher legitimacy and funding success for female-run ventures