In the past, most entrepreneurship researches were constructed on static, unilateral, single-level perspectives. They were used to adopt logic positivism as methodology so that it¡¦s hard to see the dynamic process of entrepreneurship. In this paper, I avoid following such paradigm and seek a novel solution in entrepreneurship study. I adopt complexity adaptive system (CAS) as a new theoretical perspective and narrative inquiry as a fresh methodology. In this way, entrepreneurship is viewed as a dynamic process, and all the accounts are arranged in four entrepreneurship stories: ¡§The first step : far from equilibrium¡¨, ¡§Strange attractors : vision and core capability¡¨, ¡§Dawn of the chaos : self-organization¡¨, and ¡§The pattern accompanied innovation: emergence¡¨. Through the lens of CAS, this research expresses that successful entrepreneurship is simply not the result of perfect planning in advance or opportunity identification. In fact, entrepreneurs try to enact self-organizing through interactions with the outsiders and finally generate innovation. Organizations should view chaos as normal condition thus they can keep evolution to survive. With these metaphors, the research attempt to inspire entrepreneurs and make their entrepreneurship come off.

The importance of social entrepreneurship has been growing for the last 3 decades and is recently accelerating. South Africa presents one of the most mature social entrepreneurial sectors among developing countries and the magnitude of its impact has become critical to national economic growth and society as a whole. Many roles have risen through the spreading of this particular way of conceiving business, the role of mentors being a particularly meaningful one. Mentoring is usually related to the difficulties social entrepreneurs and operators within the field have in dealing with the variables present in a free market. Most studies concerning mentoring have been focused on business organizations or entrepreneurs. Literature approaches various interesting themes within these two contexts that can help as a guide to explore the nature of mentoring in the social entrepreneurial field. This study puts its focus on the nature of mentoring in the sole social entrepreneurial field as it is understood by its prime actors: the mentors. In doing so it adopts a qualitative approach characterised by semi-structured and open ended interviews with eight experienced mentors from as many different organizations. The final results indicate that differences with the business sector are not extreme and the two fields often intertwine, with many beneficial outcomes for the social sector. However, they also illustrate that there are some aspects very specific to the sole social entrepreneurial field. Among those are the stronger sensibility toward others, the energy infused, the type of relationships, the unique motivations and a broader reach of outcomes for the mentoring activity itself. All these aspects lead mentoring in the social entrepreneurial field not only to be a useful phenomenon for involved entrepreneurs, but potentially an activity spreading its beneficial consequences to entire communities.

Sustainability and sustainable development is slowly gathering momentum in public discourse, and greater attention and reverence in academic research. While there still appears to be no consensus defining sustainability, which has lead to hampered discussion, this should not impede nor hinder a greater call for dialogue of how to ultimately change the world, and for the global economy to consider what type of individual will address environmental and social issues simultaneously. We consider ‘traditional’ entrepreneurship still necessary and vital to the continuing development of disruptive innovation and market change, however, a new breed of entrepreneur must now achieve greater focus. A sustainable shift in societies development is required to guarantee a capacity to endure. Sustainable development is critical to not only the environments long-term well-being, but also a necessity to curve the ultimate slow demise of the human race. Economic responsibly toward the environment and society is imperative. Sustainable development meets at the confluence of three constituent parts - environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and socio-political sustainability, the foundations to an emerging new field of entrepreneurship - Sustainable Entrepreneurship.Sustainable Entrepreneurs enact a holistic approach to a venture start-up that embeds environmental, economic and social sustainability dimensions. Sustainable Entrepreneurs have received insufficient attention by the media, policy makers and have failed to grab the attention of academics to test theory in an exploratory cross-case analysis approach. Previous research has mainly been conceptual and theoretical. Literature is lacking practical insights into how entrepreneurs conduct sustainable entrepreneurial initiatives and whether such definitions hold true. A cross-case analysis of five entrepreneurs operating in the renewable energy industry is conducted, evaluating theory against real life. We fill this gap by conducting exploratory research in Sustainable Entrepreneurship, identifying the entrepreneurs motivations to start-up their unique venture, challenges faced throughout the venture development process and their impact within their defined market. It is evident throughout the five case studies all our entrepreneurs have encountered some sort of antecedent exposure to an environmental concern; leading to our belief that prior exposure to a sustainability related market failure has resulted in these entrepreneurs to pursue their business initiative. Leading from this analysis, it is evident Sustainable Entrepreneurs are highly motivated to solve environmental and/ or social related problems (sustainability-related market failures). Customer perceptions and unawareness for alternative sustainable products remain a considerable challenge. It is proposed that patents, cooperating with educational institutions, establishment of an international network and organisational culture, are all important practices that assist in the business development.

This thesis compares the Swedish and the French social entrepreneurship ecosystems. After an examination of the definitions and current legal frameworks around social enterprises in each country, their levels of social entrepreneurship activity are compared. The existing support structures providing non-financial help to social entrepreneurs (i.e. incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces and networks) are identified in Paris and in Stockholm, while perceptions from social entrepreneurs benefiting from such support were gathered through interviews. Findings show that the concept of social enterprise is more recognized and legally defined in France than in Sweden. Social entrepreneurship activity seems to be hard to quantify and compare, due to a lack of data available. Support structures appear to be well developed both in Paris and in Stockholm, while the support provided is overall quite appreciated by social entrepreneurs. Furthermore, many of them perceive their support needs as rather different from those of traditional entrepreneurs. Results tend to show that although developing in practice, social entrepreneurship remains a young academic field. Stakeholders from the field have much to gain from extended research on the topic.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2010. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed June 30, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-117).

This study gives a rich and detailed account of the lived experiences of social entrepreneurs in Gauteng, South Africa. The research seeks to give a better understanding of their day-to-day experiences in their journeys as social entrepreneurs. The paper also sheds light into their motivations, the key resources needed to start the enterprise, the types of support and benefits received and the challenges faced to date. A qualitative research approach was used to gather data through face-to-face in-depth interviews. Judgement and purposive sampling techniques were used to select twelve respondents for the research. Findings of the research show that social entrepreneurs are motivated by a social objective and that this takes precedence over personal wealth creation. Social entrepreneurs need both tangible and intangible resources to begin a social enterprise. Although financial capital is imperative, this does not hinder the social entrepreneur from addressing the identified social need. Social entrepreneurs often receive support from different sources, such as the community and family. A common challenge faced is the inability to balance the double bottom line comprising of social impact and financial sustainability. Despite the challenges faced, these social entrepreneurs are persistent in making a difference. They are often celebrated by their communities, family members, and, most importantly, the beneficiaries for the positive impact they have made / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

This dissertation is concerned with the documentation and analysis of contemporary responses of a particular segment of Greek society to the economic crisis that has impacted on Greece, Europe and the wider capitalist world. Based on ethnographic research conducted in multiple sites, including the city of Athens and the village of Kandyla, I argue that dynamic contemporary connections exist between rural and urban Greece in relation to these responses. I also argue that contemporary responses to the crisis among this segment of society, notably small-business people, are constructed through and built upon strategies that have long histories in Greek village life and that are informed by responses to earlier crises, the memories of which are kept alive both materially and discursively. These responses are rooted in and performed in what Herzfeld has called “collective identification” evident in a set of shared sentiments among research participants regarding the valorisation of hard work and the principle of self-sufficiency, the parasitic nature of the Greek state, the constant production of insiders and outsiders in relation to the state, the use of reciprocity in business contexts, and the deployment of stereotypes regarding youths and politicians. / Dissertation (MSocSci) University of Pretoria, 2017. / Anthropology and Archaeology / MSocSci / Unrestricted

In the recent years, a new type of investments called Impact Investing has been growing rapidly. Those investments are made with the intention to improve social and/or environmental conditions in the world while generating financial returns. In this case, financial metrics are not enough to measure whether the investor objective was reached, and tools for measuring the social performance of the investments are needed. From that need, various measurement approaches were created, but the fragmentation of methods leads to a huge inefficiency in the impact investing industry. Efforts towards creating standards for measuring and reporting social performance are emerging, but there is still little understanding among impact investors about the real benefits and possible challenges the standardization would bring. In this context, an important question arises, which is the subject of study in this research: What are the potential consequences of establishing social performance standards for the impact investing industry? The purpose of this research is to analyze the possible consequences of establishing social performance standards on the impact investing industry. Qualitative approach and interpretive paradigm were chosen to be followed in this research. Primary data was collected in the form of interviews with impact investors and specialists in social performance measurement. Secondary data comes from books, articles, journals and websites. The data was analyzed using the consequences of innovations framework presented by Rogers (2003). The results suggest that obviously there are potential desirable and undesirable direct consequences, but also indirect consequences that are not perceived without a thorough analysis. Key words: Impact Investing, social performance, social performance standards, social businesses.

This study sheds light on sustainable social entrepreneurship by investigating the main motivators of rural entrepreneurs to start and continue in their businesses beyond financial gain. In this paper, case study design with local entrepreneurs and organizations from two different countries: Sweden and Palestine, was used as the unit of analysis. In order to unleash more creativity, the author adopted iterative abductive thinking, which allows the researcher to go back and forth between theories and empirical data.  Systematic review approach in reviewing the literature was used as the research purpose and questions are clearly defined in the research. Guided and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect empirical data. "Initial coding" was used for data analysis, allowing the author to identify themes and thus perform complete research.  Rural entrepreneurs' motivations are heavily focused on achieving sustainable development. Sustainable entrepreneurs recognize the significance of creating businesses that are good for the environment and benefit their communities. While financial gain is still one of the most important factors they seek when starting businesses in order to survive and continue to achieve social and environmental benefits, the extent varies depending on several factors such as the entrepreneur's level of involvement in entrepreneurship, their backgrounds, resources availability, policies, and support. The journey is still full of challenges and difficulties, and much support from government agencies and communities is required. However, there is a growing awareness among these parties about the significance of understanding and supporting rural entrepreneurs on their path.

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