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Abstract

Social entrepreneurship has, in spite of the young age of the research field, been researched extensively. However, a fully developed framework around its concept is still lacking. Despite research on performance monitoring for social enterprises, a clear connection between local impact and national and international development processes is not established yet. Without this connection, social enterprises, despite their local impact, may lack alignment with national governments and the international development community, which could lead to an inefficient development process at national and international levels. This study aims to establish this connection through the quantification of the impact of a social enterprise to national and international development processes. A method is developed to connect local impact to national and international targets. The method is exemplified by quantitative data collection through a survey amongst 30 members of the benefiting community of a single case study social enterprise in Zambia. Furthermore, through qualitative data collection with social enterprise leaders from two case studies in Zambia, further insights were gathered about challenges, enablers for success and measurement of success for social enterprises. The study concludes that the case study enterprise contributes to 80% of applicable national (Zambian 8th National Development Plan), and 56% of applicable international development targets (SDGs). Moreover it underscores that balancing the social mission and the financial sustainability is a significant challenge for social enterprises, although empirical methods to manage this balance are pointed out. Additionally, it argues that the skillset of the entrepreneur is a critical success factor for social enterprises. Social entrepreneurs are, however, confirmed to be rare, which creates a dependence on the entrepreneur for many enterprises. The implications of this research, is that social enterprises can have more impact to national and international development processes, which increases the effectiveness of these processes. For further research, it is recommended to perform a large-scale quantitative data analysis on benefitting communities of social enterprises to allow for generalization of findings, and to further develop the designed method.

Course: International Development Studies (DL) - MSC - P2517PTD

Date Deposited: 2024-02-08

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14379.html