Browsing by Subject "Social entrepreneurship"

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    Committed to entrepreneurial activity and social mission: what is the experience of social entrepreneurship
    (2012-06) Bailey, Jeanne Marie
    Social entrepreneurship continues to receive significant attention in the academy, practice, and public conversation. As an emerging field, the literature reflects varying perspectives on the topic but offers little on the understanding of the experience of social entrepreneurship. Using van Manen's (1997) approach to structuring human science research, I used hermeneutic phenomenology to answer the question, "What is it like to be a social entrepreneur?" A new definition of the work of a social entrepreneur was developed to assist in screening. Eleven social entrepreneurs, representing ten organizations, participated in in-depth interviews transcribed into texts. During the interviews, participants shared experiences reflecting their thoughts, ideas, and feelings about the experience of social entrepreneurship. The texts were analyzed, the results verified with the participants, and needed adjustments made. Three main theme categories were revealed: origins; living the life; and looking forward. Eight themes and 13 subthemes included: (a) personal experience and impactful events as preparation; awareness of community need, and need for change; self-knowledge; tolerance for risk and change, and action orientation (b) integration of business and social principles into structure; personal engagement; defining moments: demands and complexities of the role; relationship aspects; dealing with uncertainty and interaction with outside entities (c) leadership awareness; changing roles and sustainability. The insights gained provide opportunity for practice enhancements and further research on the importance of social need as part of opportunity identification, leadership development in social entrepreneurship, new roles with philanthropy, and the development of metrics to measure effectiveness and support sustainability. Practice implications include opportunity for new models of community support, teaching of social entrepreneurship and greater involvement of HRD in both practice and leadership. Opportunity exits to expand on the definition of social entrepreneurship.
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    Social Entrepreneurship: Investigating the Experiences of Moroccan Artisans in Cooperatives
    (2022-12-04) Strong, Joshua
    This paper takes a qualitative approach to observe how social entrepreneurship interacts with the people it is purposed to benefit using the Moroccan artisan sector as a case study. Much of the literature surrounding the highly contested topic of social entrepreneurship is concerned with definitions and socio-economic implications. This study takes a specific interest in the people at the root of social entrepreneurship as well as the programs and cooperatives it employs. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2015) of interviews involving four Moroccan artisans from two separate cooperatives is used to observe the artisan experience within a social entrepreneurial context. The results show that the experiences of the artisans are heavily influenced by the characterization of the cooperative in which they operate. The lived experiences of the artisans indicate that cooperatives acting as wage-labor programs are only social entrepreneurial on the surface, effectively retaining characteristics of exploitative economic apparatuses. The findings support the argument that purely entrepreneurial cooperatives, and the flat structure within them, are the preferred framework to employ social entrepreneurship programs. In the end, through communication of their lived experiences, artisans operating within the more entrepreneurial cooperative not only displayed a better understanding of themselves as individuals, but also the broader socio-economic landscape in which they exist. Understanding this will help inform future initiatives and social enterprise that are concerned with producing sustainable benefits to society and the economy.