This work deals with the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship in the context of the African continent. First of all, it concentrates on the situation in Africa with respect to water and then on the importance of property rights in the resolving of the situation. Subsequently it discusses one of the common attempts to solve the water crisis, i.e. aid. The second part of the thesis is concerned with social entrepreneurship only. Firstly, from the theoretical point of view (definition, typology) and secondly, from the practical point of view (case studies of enterprises that are trying to push Africa closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water).

The interest in social entrepreneurship is increasing in Europe in general and Sweden in particular. Because social entrepreneurs (SEs) and incubators share a common aim of enhancing development and improving the living conditions of the people, one would think that they tend to work together more closely than in case when incubators work with the conventional entrepreneurs (CEs). Incubator activities can influence the process of the SE. The purpose of this paper was to identify which activities, that they provide, can influence the SE’s growth. We were also interested in examining how those activities differ when working with the CEs. To fulfill this purpose, we developed the research question: What are the roles of incubators and accelerators in the entrepreneurial process of SE and how they differ from the roles played in the entrepreneurial process of CE?  In order to answer the research question and fulfil the objectives of study in hand, we embraced interpretivist approach and qualitative method for data collection and analysis. 6 semi structured interviews are conducted with SEs that have experience in participating in incubator and accelerator programs, as well as two experts from the side of incubator and accelerator programs.  It has been found that education, making contacts and facilitating meetings as well as the office space are the main roles of incubator and accelerator programs, which have as their goal to assist SEs. Moreover, it is found that not all of the roles are equally significant, nor that they are played out through all the phases of the entrepreneurial process. Stages of the entrepreneurial process are revised, and their content is found to be different in comparison with social entrepreneurship. We answer the second part of our research question by carrying out a comparative discussion based on the empirical findings on SEs and existing literature on CEs. We summaries these difference by the means of a table. Finally, we put together and connect roles of incubator and accelerator programs interested in scaling of SEs and the entrepreneurial process, where the model linking the roles through the entrepreneurial phases of SE is proposed. Hence, we conclude that our research question has been answered and research purpose fulfilled.

Ao longo do tempo atribuiu-se a geração de valor econômico-financeiro às organizações empresariais atuantes no mercado das relações capitalistas e a geração de valor social às organizações do terceiro setor. Essa aparente dualidade vem sendo questionada no âmbito do empreendedorismo, provocando o surgimento do fenômeno do investimento de impacto como uma alternativa que possibilita a alocação de capital em iniciativas e empreendimentos, os chamados negócios sociais, que visam criar impacto social positivo acompanhado de retorno financeiro. A emergência de investidores e empreendedores de negócios sociais tem provocado polêmicas e reflexões acerca da avaliação de impacto, da taxa de retorno do investimento de impacto e também de conceitos essenciais para fundamentar as operações de investimento, como valor social e impacto socioambiental. Neste cenário, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo analisar as percepções dos diferentes grupos de atores do ecossistema brasileiro de negócios sociais e investimento de impacto sobre esses temas e sobre suas experiências no setor - desafios, oportunidades e aprendizados. Foi desenhada uma pesquisa exploratória de abordagem qualitativa, cujo problema de investigação foi o levantamento de opiniões, percepções e expectativas de representantes de três grupos de atores desse ecossistema: investidores interessados em negócios sociais; empreendedores e executivos de negócios sociais; e representantes de organizações intermediárias, como aceleradoras e fundos de investimento. A partir da construção de um referencial teórico e da análise de dados secundários sobre o fenômeno estudado, realizou-se o levantamento de dados primários aplicando-se um roteiro para entrevista semiestruturada em uma amostra intencional composta por dezoito pessoas. A análise das respostas evidenciou que há uma grande diversidade de entendimentos sobre o conceito de valor social e que alguns entrevistados tendem a usar esse termo como sinônimo de impacto social. A maioria dos entrevistados ressaltou elementos relacionados ao acesso à educação, aos serviços de saúde e aos direitos de cidadania. Mas nenhum se referiu à gestão de resíduos sólidos como elemento gerador de valor social. Talvez por se tratar de empreendimentos relativamente recentes, não foi possível identificar em que grau os investidores de impacto estão contribuindo para que esses negócios potencializem a geração de valor social aos beneficiários finais. No entanto, todos os negócios sociais que receberam investimento de impacto afirmaram que os investidores estão contribuindo para o desenvolvimento de seus negócios. Sobre a taxa de retorno do investimento, as opiniões dos entrevistados divergiram, mas a maioria deles entende que, no médio e longo prazo, as taxas de retorno deveriam seguir as taxas médias de mercado. A avaliação de impacto pré-investimento ainda é mais aproximativa do que baseada em indicadores de impacto social, porém todos os atores dos grupos de oferta de capital e demanda de capital que receberam investimento afirmaram que a geração de valor social é monitorada pelos investidores após o aporte de recursos. Os principais desafios apontados foram o acesso e o volume de capital, as restrições próprias do contexto econômico brasileiro e a imaturidade do setor. Todos consideram, porém, que o setor de negócios sociais e os investimentos de impacto têm futuro promissor no Brasil, seja pela necessidade de resolução dos inúmeros problemas sociais e ambientais, seja pelo tamanho do mercado de potenciais beneficiários dessas iniciativas. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho espera contribuir para o avanço teórico e prático das questões e dilemas enfrentados pelo empreendedorismo social e pelo setor de investimento de impacto, bem como para fomentar o ecossistema brasileiro de Finanças Sociais. / Commonly, the creation of economic and financial value has been attributed to companies acting in the capitalist market relations while the creation of social value has been attributed to third sector organizations. This seeming duality is being questioned in the light of entrepreneurship, causing the emergence of the impact investing phenomenon as an alternative that allows capital to be allocated to initiatives and ventures, the so-called social businesses, which aim to create positive social impact together with financial returns. The rise of investors and entrepreneurs of social businesses has caused controversies and reflections about the impact evaluation, the rate of return for impact investments, and also the core concepts that support investment operations, such as social value and socio-environmental impact. In this scenario, this study aimed to analyze the perceptions of different groups of actors within the Brazilian social business and impact investing ecosystem related to these themes and their experiences in the sector - challenges, opportunities, and learnings. An exploratory research of qualitative approach has been designed, which research problem was a survey of opinions, perceptions and expectations of representatives of three groups of actors of this ecosystem: investors interested in social businesses; entrepreneurs and executives from social businesses; and representatives from intermediary organizations, such as accelerators and investment funds. Based on the construction of a theoretical framework and the analysis of secondary data on the studied phenomenon, a primary research has been conducted applying a script for semi-structured interview in an intentional sample of eighteen people. The analysis of the answers showed that there is a great diversity of understandings about the concept of social value and that some interviewees tend to use this term as a synonym for social impact. Most of the interviewees highlighted elements related to access to education, health services, and citizenship rights. But none of them referred to the solid waste management as a generator of social value. Perhaps because these are relatively recent ventures, it was not possible to identify the extent to which impact investors are contributing to the growth of social value creation to the final beneficiaries. However, all social businesses that received impact investments stated that investors are contributing to the development of their businesses. Regarding the rate of return on investment, the respondents\' opinions diverged, but most of them understood that, in the medium and long term, rates of return should follow average market rates. The pre-investment impact evaluation is still more approximate than based on social impact metrics, but all actors from the groups of investors and of social businesses which received investments stated that the generation of social value is monitored by investors after capital contribution. The main challenges are the access and volume of capital, the constraints of the Brazilian economic context, and the immaturity of the sector. However, all of them consider that the social business sector and impact investments have a promising future in Brazil, whether due to the need to solve the numerous social and environmental problems or due to the size of the market of potential beneficiaries of these initiatives. In this sense, this work hopes to contribute to the theoretical and practical advancement of the issues and dilemmas faced by the social entrepreneurship and the impact investment sector, as well as to foster the Brazilian Social Finance ecosystem.

<p>Purpose: Our main purpose is to carry out a research on combining microfinance with entrepreneurship for poverty alleviation, empowerment of poor and sustainable development.</p><p>Target group: Students, researchers in Microfinance field, MFI’s, NGO’s and Governmental structures.</p><p>Research Question: How do micro entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and microfinance serve as a combined tool to reduce poverty, empower people, and contribute to sustainable development in Pakistan?</p><p>Approach: We used qualitative approach for research. The data have been collected through interviews which held as structured and unstructured, and as secondary sources web page of the organization, statistics of Pakistan and Book of organization have also been consulted.</p><p>Delimitations: Due to distance problem between Pakistan and Sweden and, it was difficult to organize interviews at large scale from borrowers and this can reflect limited information about micro entrepreneurship. It is worthy to say here that Islamic microfinance is quite new practice and very limited data was available. With this, we mainly emphasized on microfinance and entrepreneurship as a combined tool, therefore, there is not enough discussion on Islamic microfinance. But we try to elaborate a complete picture of Islamic microfinance. Originality/value: This paper emphasizes on both Microfinance and Entrepreneurship, as case study we choose Akhuwat organization which started to give loans to poor people without interest. Also we focused on Social Entrepreneurship side of organization which challenges to other MFI’s with innovative type of loaning. Research will give a vision to Akhuwat and other micro financing organization that how they can develop activities more successfully.</p><p>Future implications: During our research we investigate that there is need to carry out more research on lending methods other than solidarity group. The other area is micro entrepreneurship that needs to be more investigated by researcher because in developing countries micro business with only traditional ways will not be so successful. There will be need of more innovation in production system or in business processes. Islamic microfinance is quite new way for lending loan. It is needed that researcher of western world also do research on this method. So that clear result should come and method becomes more mature.</p><p>Social Entrepreneurship also need to be discovered from many points, especially relation with profit and non for profit, public, private and nongovernmental models.</p><p>Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Microfinance, Social Entrepreneurship</p><p>Paper type: Master Thesis</p>

Background: Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon gaining increased attention from academia and business society. Social enterprises have a duality of social change and business logic, which aims to reach a social mission while offering a commodity. For the commodity to benefit the social mission, multiple targets groups are needed. This deserves a well-planned marketing strategy, however social entrepreneurs have scarce resources to conduct marketing in the best possible way. For these reasons, there is a need for further investigating on social entrepreneurship and marketing.  Purpose: This thesis aims to investigate how the duality in social enterprises coexists in marketing strategies. Additionally, we will address how and why social enterprises prioritize the duality in marketing strategies, and what consequences it carries.  Method: A qualitative research approach has been chosen, consisting of a multiple case study of four Swedish social enterprises. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and an observation, and analyzed through a cross-case comparison.  Conclusion: It can be concluded that duality coexist and is obvious in a social enterprise setting. A social enterprise’s marketing strategy has to balance the duality, since business logic is essential to achieve social change. Values reflect how the duality is prioritized in marketing strategies. Marketing the duality is done with different purposes; awareness creation and promotion. If marketing is done with transparency and clearness, a social enterprise can be financially stable and enhance their social good, which can positively affect all stakeholders.

Social entrepreneurship is a promising approach in addressing social issues, however, it is still relatively new to consumers. There is an increase in demand for products that have a positive social reputation. In order to reach consumers, social enterprises need promotion.  It is crucial for social enterprises since they are competing for public awareness of the company itself and its social mission. Social enterprises are addressing social issues and striving to reach their missions through different activities. There is  little research available of perceptions and purchase decisions of different consumer groups regarding social entrepreneurial activities. The purpose of the thesis was to examine how consumers perceive social entrepreneurship activities within the fashion industry and consequently, how consumers’ purchase decisions are affected by these activities. To fulfil this purpose, existing literature was reviewed and an online questionnaire was conducted. Total amount of 235 people living in Sweden participated in the questionnaire.    Promoted social entrepreneurship activities were observed through the Social Entrepreneurship Map and the results showed that activities related to ‘Job creation’ and ‘Help focus’ sector were the ones represented in the fashion industry. It was discovered that the promoted social entrepreneurship activities within ‘Job creation’ sector were triggering more positive associations than ‘Help focus’ activities. Despite the positive overall perception of the activities, the majority of consumers had not purchased products from social enterprises. The results showed that overall consumers were willing to purchase products from companies engaging in social entrepreneurship activities. Additionally, a positive correlation was found between purchase decisions and willingness to buy in the future. The more consumers had purchased products before, the more willing they were also to purchase in the future.

In crowdfunding, funders often have very little or no information about the social entrepreneur and the venture. This asymmetric information hinders funding in that potential funders only make a pledge if they can trust the entrepreneur and the seriousness of the project. Thus entrepreneurs have to signal information to potential funders. In the case of conventional ventures, this means showing that the company is committed to the financial returns or the quality of the product, for instance. However, in the case of social enterprises, entrepreneurs can signal their commitment to a social or an environmental challenge. The information that entrepreneurs want to convey to potential funders depends very much on the type of crowdfunding. The type of crowdfunding determines whether the entrepreneur is pitching to potential investors, lenders or potential consumers and general supporters of the project. While investors tend to be more concerned with the financial returns, the quality of the product or service tends to be the variable that matters most to the potential consumer. This thesis examines the crowdfunding campaigns of social ventures in order to understand how to crowdfund social enterprises. It identifies the signals with which, social entrepreneurs try to attract funding through different types of crowdfunding, mainly reward-based. It finds that reward-based crowdfunding offers a good basis for social entrepreneurs to attract funding by advertising and signaling their commitment to social or environmental issues. This is all the more true when the social enterprise seeking to be crowdfunded only aims to be financially autonomous and thus cannot offer attractive financial returns to potential investors.

Sustainability has been characterized and explored mostly from an environmental standpoint, with relatively less attention paid to social and economic dimensions. Because many sustainability organizations have grown out of the environmental movement, they tend to emphasize environmental priorities and retain many of the organizational strategies that were pioneered when the focus was on environmental conservation. However, to attain a more socially and economically informed environmental practice, broader procedural aspects, including recognition and participation, and substantive aspects, including issues of social need, distribution of wealth, and economic opportunity, need to be addressed as these matters are intimately linked to environmental concerns. In this thesis, I examined sustainability organizations against the concept of ‘just sustainability’, with specific consideration paid to uniting the substantive concerns of sustainability with the procedural concerns of environmental justice. I focused my examination on model forests and UNESCO biosphere reserves located in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, an area of high economic vulnerability and low political power. By looking to governance directives from environmental justice, entrepreneurship, and community development, I conducted a multi-case study analysis with organizations that have a mandate to address the environmental, social and economic imperatives of sustainability. Through engaging these organizations in a comparative learning situation, I was able to achieve the following objectives, to: i) assess the governance strategies used within these organizations against just sustainability theory; ii) understand the challenges faced by place-based organizations and examine strategies to better improve local understanding, community empowerment, as well as sustainability outcomes; and iii) assess the feasibility - conceptually and empirically – of incorporating social entrepreneurship into the governance practices of sustainability organizations to bring together the benefits of both approaches. The findings of this thesis make valuable contributions to the empirical evidence needed to advance our understanding of just sustainability, both conceptually and in practice. Overall, my findings point to the importance of understanding and improving our practice of sustainability governance through identifying and offering examples of innovative governance arrangements that are better able to address procedural and substantive concerns. Findings show that the stakeholder model typically used by biosphere reserves and model forests contributes to systemic challenges that limit procedural justice in these organizations. By looking to other literatures, including community development and social entrepreneurship, and to lessons learned from other place-based organizations, I propose ways to adapt governance strategies to improve community engagement and organizational outcomes, including a framework to inform place-based governance for just sustainability and a “hybrid model” that captures the benefits of stakeholder representation and social enterprise. This study speaks to the need for researchers and practitioners seeking to advance sustainability governance to extend their understanding beyond environmental sustainability to embrace more social dimensions. This thesis demonstrates the value of looking to broad literatures and new models to inform sustainability governance and encourage the adoption of new ways of thinking, new strategies, and new tools to help advance sustainability.

This is a story of a social movement's conception and the articulation of its meaning and meaningfulness. Gawad Kalinga, an ambitious Philippine community development cum nation building movement, initiated "GK777" to build 700,000 homes in 7,000 communities, in seven years. I assessed the national and global implications of this social movement's social networking model of nation-building through community development, poverty alleviation, and slum eradication. Using an ethnographic case study to conduct an inductive, grounded theory analysis, the study sought to explore if strategies and actions that go beyond traditional and conflict-centered social movement conceptions are enabling it to achieve their goals and to transfer its model to five other countries. The global implications and replicability of GK's nation-building model on the emergence and development of other forms of social movements, civil society-state governance, are compelling. The attempt at articulating and integrating political process and opportunity structure, resource/ structure mobilization, framing process, and new social movement theories in explaining another form of social movement and of civil society highlights the suitability for such kind of research, long-term monitoring and evaluation, and theorizing.

Purpose: Our main purpose is to carry out a research on combining microfinance with entrepreneurship for poverty alleviation, empowerment of poor and sustainable development. Target group: Students, researchers in Microfinance field, MFI’s, NGO’s and Governmental structures. Research Question: How do micro entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and microfinance serve as a combined tool to reduce poverty, empower people, and contribute to sustainable development in Pakistan? Approach: We used qualitative approach for research. The data have been collected through interviews which held as structured and unstructured, and as secondary sources web page of the organization, statistics of Pakistan and Book of organization have also been consulted. Delimitations: Due to distance problem between Pakistan and Sweden and, it was difficult to organize interviews at large scale from borrowers and this can reflect limited information about micro entrepreneurship. It is worthy to say here that Islamic microfinance is quite new practice and very limited data was available. With this, we mainly emphasized on microfinance and entrepreneurship as a combined tool, therefore, there is not enough discussion on Islamic microfinance. But we try to elaborate a complete picture of Islamic microfinance. Originality/value: This paper emphasizes on both Microfinance and Entrepreneurship, as case study we choose Akhuwat organization which started to give loans to poor people without interest. Also we focused on Social Entrepreneurship side of organization which challenges to other MFI’s with innovative type of loaning. Research will give a vision to Akhuwat and other micro financing organization that how they can develop activities more successfully. Future implications: During our research we investigate that there is need to carry out more research on lending methods other than solidarity group. The other area is micro entrepreneurship that needs to be more investigated by researcher because in developing countries micro business with only traditional ways will not be so successful. There will be need of more innovation in production system or in business processes. Islamic microfinance is quite new way for lending loan. It is needed that researcher of western world also do research on this method. So that clear result should come and method becomes more mature. Social Entrepreneurship also need to be discovered from many points, especially relation with profit and non for profit, public, private and nongovernmental models. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Microfinance, Social Entrepreneurship Paper type: Master Thesis