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.

Background: Social entrepreneurship started to appear in the academic research in the end of 1990´s and has since then been well discussed by researchers. They have come up with numerous of different definitions and meanings of the term, but agree that the goal for these kinds of entrepreneurs is to create social value. Purpose: Our objective with this study is to create an understanding of where social entrepreneurs acquire the necessary resources to start their social business. Research question: How do social entrepreneurs acquire the necessary resources to start their social business in Rio de Janeiro? Methodology: The study adopted a qualitative research method and semi-structured interviews have been done in order to gather data. An abductive approach has been used where the authors has gone back and forth between the theory and the empirical findings. Research findings: The social entrepreneurs that we interviewed used the following ways to acquire resources to start their social business: Social venture capitalists, social capital, human capital, cultural capital and volunteers.

This thesis research concerns women’s social entrepreneurship in Gaza Strip. Itsmain purpose is to provide a better understanding of how women socialentrepreneurs experience social entrepreneurship in Gaza Strip. Also, it digs deepinto their motives and challenges. The main methodological approach is thenarrative approach. Five women social entrepreneurs from Gaza Strip areinterviewed, and their full narratives are presented as empirical material so that theirvoices are heard and their fluctuating experiences are recognized. The narratives areanalyzed based on the three pillars of social entrepreneurship, social mission,sustainable profit, and social change. Also, the motives and challenges are analyzedbased on the socio-cultural and economic contexts of Gaza Strip. According to thisthesis research, family support and education are fundamental factors in enablingwomen’s social entrepreneurship in Gaza Strip. Also, women social entrepreneurschoose social entrepreneurship because they are inspired by their education, thedesire for personal development and recognition, and helping others through socialentrepreneurship. Moreover, their significant challenges are socio-cultural barriers,poor entrepreneurial education, lack of awareness, deteriorating economic situation,blockade, electricity outage, and favoritism. Finally, this thesis research fills someliterature gaps regarding the nexus between women social entrepreneurs in GazaStrip, patriarchal societies, and regions with conflicts and social entrepreneurship.Also, it highlights the importance of contextualizing women social entrepreneurs inresearch.

The aim of this project is to further enable emancipation of Indian craftswomen through the use of an alternative co-design process. As a designer working with textiles and fashion I was interested to explore how I could positively impact the production process of textiles. I spent five weeks in India, with the intent to understand the stakeholders and the project, but mainly focused on the Indian craftswomen’s involvement. The design research has been an iterative process based on qualitative research consisting of interactive partner visits, observations, conversations and workshops. Starting in 2012, IKEA have formed partnerships with social entrepreneurs around the world with the aim to create social change rather than economic wealth, mainly focusing on giving employment to women. In this partnership, IKEA haven’t yet found the ultimate level of artisan’s involvement in the design process that is convenient for both parties. I propose a design process, comprised of tools, that aims to support rural artisans and urban designers when co-creating textile products aimed at a western market.

Current, unsustainable practices are negatively impacting the socio-ecological systems on which humanity depends. This paper argues that social enterprise, as a market-based approach is an effective tool to help developing countries to transition toward sustainability. To gain an understanding as to how broader participation in social enterprise could be encouraged, this research investigates the motivations, enablers, challenges and incentives for professionals in developing countries to participate in social enterprise. In addition, the role of social enterprise and its limitations in moving society toward sustainability were investigated. A qualitative research design was used. The framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) was employed to ensure a systems perspective of sustainability was captured in this study. Findings include seven motivational factors, eight enabling factors, and twelve challenges facing social entrepreneurs; as well as seven categories of suggested incentives to increase participation. Strategic recommendations targeted toward government agencies, non-governmental and multilateral development organizations, and social enterprise incubators, were provided as guidelines to encourage participation and ensure sustainability.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T16:44:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cassia Maria Paula Lima.pdf: 2230053 bytes, checksum: ccd55850e398b11190508b5c79132ace (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-03 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the social entrepreneur, from the observation his practice and seeking to consolidate a comprehensive overview, an understanding of this agent that incorporates the approaches of different disciplines that study. The social entrepreneur presents features, depending on who defines it: Administrators, psychologists, sociologists and economists. It is relevant to add that notice of any fact or social action is not a simple task, as society is, by its very nature and in any instance, complex; the complexity grows in the area of current humanitarian aid because of the multiple actions arising in this new segment, such as: Investment Fund in order to generate social impact, social business, social transparency, governance, 2.5 and municipal councils with the new social movements. As well as new actors appear institutions: social entrepreneurs and investors, that coexist with other well-known actors in society, as philanthropists. To this end, it was promoted a qualitative case study of a social entrepreneur from her speech and another six people that were indicated by her and who participated in the help project to others. Xinha from Liga Solidária (Non Governamental Organization) was considered from the main guidelines of the Grounded Theory, which is a methodology that sets out the research process as non-linear. The main conclusion is this social entrepreneur acts in networks to achieve improvements to a community. It was taken into account the studies on Granovetter's weak ties on networks and embeddedness to conclude that she actively worked to build a proactive development of the network, understanding local issues, recovering lost links, and sharing knowledge. Were thus highlighted the features that sets her apart as a social entrepreneur, who is the focus on social work and the promotion of innovation in society. What remained was the path taken by Xinha corresponded to her own process of training as a social entrepreneur / A finalidade desta dissertação é compreender o empreendedor social, observando-o na sua prática, e buscando consolidar uma visão abrangente, um entendimento deste agente que incorpore as abordagens das diferentes disciplinas que o estudam. O empreendedor social apresenta características, dependendo de quem o define: administradores, psicólogos, sociólogos e economistas. Importa acrescentar que a observação de qualquer fato ou ação social não é uma tarefa simples, dado que a sociedade é, por natureza e em qualquer instância, complexa; a complexidade se acentua na área de ajuda humanitária atual graças às múltiplas ações novas surgidas no cenário deste segmento, tais como: fundo de investimentos com finalidade de gerar impacto social, negócios sociais, setor 2,5, governança, transparência social e conselhos municipais com novos movimentos sociais. Assim como as instituições, surgem novos atores: os investidores e empreendedores sociais, que convivem com outros atores conhecidos na sociedade, como filantropos. Para tanto, promoveu-se um estudo de caso de natureza qualitativa de uma empreendedora social a partir do seu discurso e de mais seis pessoas que ela indicou e que participaram do seu projeto de ajuda aos outros. A Dona Xinha da Liga Solidária foi analisada a partir das principais diretrizes da Teoria Fundamentada (Grounded Theory), que é uma metodologia que explicita o processo de pesquisa como não linear. A principal conclusão é que essa empreendedora age em rede para atingir melhorias para uma comunidade. Leva-se em conta os estudos sobre redes de Granovetter sobre laços fracos e imersão (embeddedness) para concluir que ela atuou ativamente para formar uma rede concisa e ampla, entendendo os problemas locais, recuperando elos perdidos, e compartilhando conhecimento. Ficaram assim evidenciadas as características que a diferencia como empreendedora social, que é o foco no social (ter objetivo social) e a promoção da inovação na sociedade. O que restou comprovado foi que o caminho percorrido correspondeu ao seu próprio processo de formação como empreendedora social

Social enterprises make up one of the groups of participants that provide welfare services financed by public funding. The object of this study is to describe and analyze from a theoretical point of view which conditions, in what fields, by which division of responsibility and finally through what decisions these social enterprises are allocated a place in the market for social welfare services. The company that has been the object of study offers services in the field of social welfare and in employment. In the study a triangulation of qualitative methods has been used: studies of literature on the subject, recurrent interviews and observations and also reviews of documents. The results have been analyzed from theories on the space available on the market for social services, on social economy and on social capital in the form of strong, weak and bridging bonds. The study indicates that it is important to analyze social enterprises by the help of criteria for companies, social enterprises, the characteristics pertaining to the social entrepreneurs, available space on the market, organization, funding, production, political decisions, approval as a participant and finally choices made by patrons. The study also offers a general checklist with criteria that may be used for analysis and the explanation of social enterprises. / Sociala företag är en av de aktörer som levererar välfärdstjänster finansierade med offentliga medel. Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån ett teoretiskt perspektiv beskriva och analysera vilka förutsättningar, på vilka arenor, med vilken ansvarsfördelning och vilka beslut som ger sociala företag utrymme på den sociala välfärdsarenan. Det studerade sociala företaget erbjuder sociala välfärdstjänster och sysselsättning. I studien har en triangulering av kvalitativa metoder använts: litteraturstudier, återkommande intervjuer och observationer samt granskning av dokument. Resultaten har analyserats utifrån teorier om utrymmet på den sociala välfärdsarenan, social ekonomi samt socialt kapital i form av starka, svaga och överbryggande band. Studien visar att det är av vikt att analysera sociala företag med kriterier för företag, sociala företag, egenskaper hos de sociala företagarna, utrymme, arrangemang, finansiering och produktion samt politiska beslut, godkännande som aktör samt kunderna och brukarnas val. En generell checklista med kriterier som kan användas för analys och förklaring av sociala företag har tagits fram i studien.

This bachelor thesis evaluates how high-engagement investors contribute to the development and growth of for-profit social enterprises by providing both funding and non-financial advisory services focused on organisational capacity-building. Case studies on three social enterprises describe the structure of funding deals, what considerations affected these due to the high social character of the ventures, and inquire into the relationship between social enterprise and their investors to evaluate how the investors provide value for their investees beyond capital. The investor types involved include commercial venture capital funds, angel investors, accelerator programs and venture philanthropy funds; a sort of social impact investment fund which combines the high- engagement mentoring of venture capital funds with lower expectations on financial returns in exchange for higher demands on social impact. The findings indicate that high-engagement investors in general provide a wide range of services to the social enterprises studied, where strategic advisory services and networks introductions are identified as key enablers for development. Aligning philosophies on the combination of business and social impact is also identified as critical for a constructive relationship between investor and investee. The perceived value of venture philanthropy funding diverges between the cases; while filling an empty space in the social enterprise capital market, some findings question their capabilities and investment model. Apart from the initial research questions on how high-engagement investors add value to social enterprises, the study raises further questions on social enterprise funding in general and the issues that obstructs these organisations from introducing innovation and growth to underdeveloped markets.

No description available.

Nel primo capitolo si propone una rassegna della letteratura di ambito economico e manageriale in tema di Responsabilità Sociale d’Impresa (RSI). Successivamente, si identificano le peculiarità degli attori operanti nel settore bancario etico. Infine, si comparano i risultati degli studi sul comportamento delle banche etiche con quelli disponibili sulle banche tradizionali. Il secondo capitolo confronta le condizioni di rifinanziamento delle banche sociali con quelle delle banche standard, quando le prime dispongono di informazioni private sulla qualità dei clienti. Ciò comporta il noto problema dell’hold-up, che tuttavia può essere attenuato dai costi delle peculiari attività di selezione e monitoraggio delle banche etiche. Ne risulta che, indipendentemente dalla qualità del cliente, le banche standard potrebbero offrire condizioni di prestito più vantaggiose di quelle delle banche etiche. Il terzo capitolo usa un modello spaziale per descrivere come le banche sociali e standard definiscono i loro tassi di interesse quando competono nel mercato dei depositi e dei prestiti. Come suggerisce l’evidenza empirica, i risparmiatori delle banche sociali sono disposti ad accettare tassi più bassi di quelli del mercato. Pertanto, si determinano le condizioni per cui ciò si verifica e si studia quando questo è compatibile con tassi più bassi anche sui prestiti. / In the first chapter, we begin with a survey on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in economics, management and business literatures. Then we identify the peculiarities of the agents operating in the social banking sector. Thereafter, we compare and contrast the contributions focused on the behavior of social banks with those available on traditional lenders. The second chapter compares the refinancing behavior of social banks with that of standard lenders when the former have inside information on the quality of the borrowers. This entails the renowned hold-up problem which, however, can be mitigated by the costs of the ethical screening and monitoring activities of social banks. As a result, standard banks may offer better loan contracts and attract high quality borrowers. The third chapter proposes a spatial competition model to investigate how standard and social banks set their interest rates when they compete in the deposit and loan markets. As the empirical evidence suggests, social depositors are willing to accept returns lower than the market level. Therefore we determine under which conditions social banks pay deposit rates lower than those of standard banks and when this is compatible with lower rates also on loans.