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.

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.

abstract: This research examined the perceptions of refugees towards social entrepreneurship in Arizona through focus group discussions with 77 members of the refugee communities that have been organized under nine groups. Business experience, problem solving experience, conception of social entrepreneurship, examples, opportunities, support, and needs emerged as the themes of the study. Available opportunities as well as barriers for refugee social entrepreneurship based on the views of refugees in Arizona were explained. The difference between commercial entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship was highlighted and some examples of refugee social entrepreneurship described. Qualitative data analysis revealed that refugees in Arizona have entrepreneurial characteristics such as risk taking, hardworking, problem solving, and determination. They also have a good understanding of commercial entrepreneurship but very little understanding of social entrepreneurship. The findings underlined that social entrepreneurship can be used as a helpful strategy for self-sufficiency of refugees residing in Arizona. Given their life trajectories, refugees in Arizona have high potential to be social entrepreneurs with the right exposure and training. If supported adequately and planned appropriately, the refugee social entrepreneurship project can lead to self-sufficiency and faster integration of participating individuals to the mainstream society. The findings may spark interest among practitioners, policy makers, and scholars. It may redefine refugee social work practices as the passion of enterprising empowers refugees and helps them to discover self-confidence and rebrand their image. Policy makers may consider incorporating refugee social entrepreneurship in to the current self-sufficiency plan for refugee resettlement. Future research needs to investigate how refugee social entrepreneurs can be successful and focus on the measurement of their success. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social Work 2015

Increasingly, developed countries' markets, which are usually characterized by wealthy customers, are getting saturated. This has necessitated that multinational corporations (MNCs) seek new solutions for their future growth and profitability. One of the markets that has attracted the attention of MNCs is the bottom of the economic pyramid (BOP), which comprises four billion people. However, reaching this market, characterized as having a low income of less than $2 a day, is not easily achievable. Corporations have to revisit their prior business models and develop winwin solutions that serve the needs of the poor and create profits. To conceptualize the market-based initiatives of MNCs at the BOP, this research employs the concept of corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE). CSE is defined in this research as the process of innovatively identifying and exploiting social opportunities in large and established organizations with the aim of creating economic and social value. The research questions that this dissertation seeks to answer are concerned with exploring the antecedents and outcomes of CSE. First, built upon three related strands of literature - social entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility - this research attempts to provide a preliminary understanding of the potential antecedents and outcomes of CSE. Then, by employing multiple qualitative and exploratory case studies, CSE and its antecedents and outcomes are empirically investigated in eight multinational companies in India. The research identifies demand conditions and stakeholder expectations as the environmental factors that predict CSE. Three organizational characteristics - management support, a network orientation towards social sector organizations, and the availability of financial resources - are also found to be determining factors. The outcomes are identified associal value creation, long-term profitability and legitimacy. These antecedents and outcomes are theoretically explained and supported by contingency theory, the contingent resource-based view and stakeholder theory.

Social entrepreneurship has grown in popularity since Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2006. Pollinate Energy is an Australian social business working to improve the lives of the urban poor in India. The purpose of this study is to investigate the portability of the organisation’s business model to other geographical locations, e.g what adjustments might be needed if transferring and implementing the concept in new cities and locations. A qualitative case study approach was conducted by gathering experiences from Bangalore through interviews and secondary sources and field observations from a field study conducted in Hyderabad, India. The results indicate that the local cultural context shapes the structure of the concept. It was found to be easier to establish relationships through products with immediate tangible benefits, which indicates that products are highly context dependent. Therefore, local trials of products are needed for the concept to be effective. Moreover, further investigations of the model would be required if the concept were to be transferred to other geographical locations. The model can generate spin-off effects contributing to development, and can thus be a catalyst for social change.

Social entrepreneurship, which can be described as the application of market-based approaches to societal and/or environmental problems, represents a collision between good intentions and the pursuit of profitability. Nearly two decades ago, the democratically elected African National Congress inherited a country in crisis. Neoliberal policies have since promoted the role of the private sector in economic and social development in South Africa. Entrepreneurship is seen as a tool to stimulate poverty alleviation, address staggering unemployment rates and integrate blacks into the mainstream economy. Municipalities are increasingly turning to alternative service delivery, privatization and public-private partnerships to address service delivery crises. Moving beyond traditional methodological approaches of individual case studies, this research adopts a holistic analysis of the recycling sector, which allows reflections on the state and implications of (social) entrepreneurial approaches. Particularly, this research is concerned with the opportunities and limitations afforded by entrepreneurial approaches, including the extent to which contextual variables are acknowledged and unequal power dynamics are challenged or further entrenched. Grounded in entrepreneurship and business theory, this research also pulls from waste management literature, global development, critical and gender studies. Various methodological inquires are undertaken, including structured and semi-structured interviews of participants of recycling initiatives and management of sector organizations, content analysis, and the facilitation of a Recycling Forum. Findings suggest that while there are some opportunities, (social) entrepreneurial approaches are significantly hindered by a lack of acknowledgement of contextual variables and critical investigation into the institutional structures and biases that create particular gendered entrepreneurial spaces. Initiatives risk entrenching apartheid-era inequalities and further disadvantaging the most vulnerable through the creation of competition. The emphasis on recycling deflects efforts from more immediate or hazardous challenges and is insufficient to challenge market inequalities. Moving beyond a guise of good intentions, social entrepreneurship is suggested as a reflective and iterative process that promotes greater self-awareness of one’s impact on the existing value chain, power dynamics and social justice. / Thesis (Master, Environmental Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-20 21:17:33.868

(no abstract available)

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce by Research in the field of Management to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, June 2017 / The field of social entrepreneurship is gaining prominence in academic research through its ability to drive innovation and solve complex societal problems. There is a growing interest in this field due to the inherent appeal of entrepreneurship as well as the need to address social inequalities. However, despite the growing interest in social entrepreneurship, there is limited academic research in the subject – especially with regards to the nexus between institutional influence and scale of social enterprise. The majority of social entrepreneurial endeavours in South Africa are found in the food industry. Despite the magnitude of the role that social entrepreneurs play in this industry, research remains limited. Definitional debates with a bias towards conceptual research over empirical research dominates current study on social entrepreneurship – resulting in a lack of consensus among researchers on what social entrepreneurship means. In addition to the above, social entrepreneurship literature has devoted insufficient empirical and theoretical work to the study of scaling of social impact. The majority of the theoretical work has been geared towards the development of practitioner frameworks. The empirical research in the field has also been limited, specifically with regards to understanding the drivers of successful scaling of social entrepreneurial organisations. The majority of these empirical studies have utilised comparative case study approaches. Using institutional theory as a lens, this research aimed to develop a conceptual framework that can be utilised by social entrepreneurs, as well as relevant stakeholders in order to promote the scale of individual social enterprises, particularly in the South African food industry, by developing a “roadmap” to scaling. In addition to the above, the focus was on food security in the South African food industry. It is intended that the conceptual framework can indirectly address the broader societal issues surrounding food security. The above was achieved through a qualitative study. Perceptions of institutional influence on scale as well as start-ups, and drivers of scale were identified through conducting a literature review. A conceptual framework was then established from these constructs. The next step involved conducting semi-structured interviews with 14 social entrepreneurs in the food industry to validate the constructs, and identify the relationships between the constructs. The data was then analysed using the Interpretative Phenomenological approach. The result of the qualitative research is a conceptual research framework, with certain hypotheses. The empirical study identified social innovation as well as the implementation of impactful governmental policies as the most critical institutional influencers of scale. In addition, using SCALERS model as a reference, the empirical study identified lobbying, alliance building, and staffing as drivers to scale. It is noted that that lobbying and alliance building can be linked to government policies as it relates to the collaboration of social enterprises in order to influence policymakers, in addition, staffing relates to the use of volunteers to bring new innovative solutions to the business – these drivers of scale (based on SCALERS model) reinforce the identified institutional influences as critical to scale. If all of the above are present, with all things being equal, then social ventures are more likely to scale – resulting in economic growth and in addition, social issues such as food security will be addressed. From a social entrepreneurship perspective, this study made a substantial contribution in shifting the social entrepreneurship research focus from conceptual, definition biased research towards empirical research that strengthened theoretical research on social entrepreneurship. / XL2018

Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, PhD (Management) / The South African Government has entrusted Social Work Professionals (SWP’s) with the responsibility of humanizing the lives of the most vulnerable groups in society. SWP’s are scrupulously trained to rehabilitate and heal the ailing community, but nowadays they are inadvertently incapacitated because their role has grown far beyond its original skill-base whilst their educational grooming and the legislation governing their role has remained stagnant. Furthermore, the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) within which they operate are unsustainable and many of them struggle for survival. The prevailing socio-economic environment imposes various demands on both the SWP profession and the non-profit sector, forcing them to provide for their survival by performing commercial duties that they are not trained to perform. This practice has resulted in a disjuncture in the roles of SWP’s and a brain-drain of professionals out of the sector. The study was split into two separate albeit related components employing a combination of qualitative methods and techniques to thoroughly investigate the source of this disjuncture and establish viable methods to address it. The first phase was designed to understand the history of social work in South Africa spanning two political dispensations, assess the legislated role that SWP’s should perform against the current role they are performing, in order to understand and explain the discrepancy in their role. Thereafter the second phase was conducted as a follow-up to explore how the concept of Social Entrepreneurship in conjunction with comprehensive management proficiency could provide possibilities of addressing and improving the shortcomings arising in the role of the SWP. ii The first phase documented that SWP’s are currently struggling in practice, with inadequate resources and lack of enterprise and management proficiency to fully facilitate their mandate. This deficiency suggested a shift in their role that is different from their usual rehabilitating role. Social Policy Frameworks were identified as the possible hindrance for the current lack of enterprising in the social sector, followed by socio-economic pressures and insufficient education and training of SWP’s. A paradigm shift to acknowledge and qualify the growth in the role of an SWP academically and legislatively was recommended, followed by relevant intellectual construction of knowledge. The second phase of the study acknowledged that Social Entrepreneurship is a fairly new concept in academic circles. In addition, most reviewed literature on Social Entrepreneurship suggested that the African landscape was either not fully understood by the authors or not yet catered for since most of the solutions were not fully commensurate with problems experienced in (South) Africa. Therefore, the researcher approached available scholars globally with primary data depicting real problems that are experienced on the ground and which seemed to challenge their presented solutions from the reviewed literature. This process systematically examined the concept of Social Entrepreneurship, accentuating how a different set of resource combinations of its aspects customized for the South African socio-economic environment could open up a new window of knowledge to enhance the impending social transformation, notwithstanding the view that further research for African needs was strongly encouraged. Findings from the first phase strongly suggested specialisation in the profession of an SWP in the short term and the development of a new cadre of enterprising SWP’s in the longer term. The second phase’s findings validated the suggestion from the first phase to split the role of an SWP, introduce entrepreneurial and management competence designed for social benefit as a new and special role, and develop a new cadre of professionals over time who will specialise in the new competence. iii Findings from both phases of the study have led to the conclusion that the role of an SWP has shifted and grown far beyond its original skill-base. This conclusion has notable policy implications for legislation governing SWP’s. Whilst this study has acknowledged and qualified the growth in the role of an SWP academically as entrepreneurial and management deficiency, to complete the acknowledgement, this growth has to be recognised legislatively within the policy frameworks. Specialisation in the profession of social work would also need to be legislated to enable academia to provide intellectual leadership on the new role, define research needs, develop a new curriculum, then recruit and develop a new cadre of enterprising SWP’s. These findings lead to a further conclusion that policy frameworks governing SWP’s are not entirely congruent with the prevailing socio-economic environment and might benefit from a review that underlines SWP’s’ core function, education and training that is commensurate with the needs of their role, especially the needs of the shift experienced in their role.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management specialising in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation Johannesburg, 2016 / Social entrepreneurship is considered to be a practical way of solving global social challenges. Social entrepreneurs are considered to be change agents with a purpose of making a difference to those in need. Therefore, developing social entrepreneurship and potential social entrepreneurs should be encouraged and celebrated. This study aims to identify potential entrepreneurs in South Africa, by examining the intentions of students at universities in South Africa with regard to establishing a social venture. Empirical evidence suggests that motivational factors influencing behaviour can be summarised as intentions. Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (1991) suggests that intentions are a prerequisite for entrepreneurial behaviour. This study presents an integrated model drawing on existing social intention-based models by Mair and Noboa (2003) and Ayob et al. (2013). The study seeks to establish the significance of relationships between antecedents (empathy, exposure and selfefficacy) and perceived feasibility and desirability and their influence on social entrepreneurial intentions. In order to analyse the hypothesised relationships in the proposed model, Structural Equation Modelling was conducted, based on 171 respondents. The findings of the study indicate that only empathy and exposure as antecedents to perceived feasibility had positive and significant relationships. The relationships between the antecedents of empathy, exposure and self-perceived desirability were insignificant. Surprisingly, the relationship between self-efficacy and perceived feasibility in this study was non-significant. Social entrepreneurship has the potential to solve the challenging social problems currently facing South Africa. Because of this, a study to determine the elements that motivate Social Entrepreneurship Intentions is invaluable. The study should provide some guidance in promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship through various interventions (Malebana, 2014). / MT2016