Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Role of Social Entrepreneurship in Addressing Poverty.

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1602784 Brayden King Nevena Radoynovska Northwestern University Social entrepreneurship - broadly understood as the use of market principles to address social needs - has raised high expectations for curbing global poverty and social exclusion. Yet, despite impressive growth in attention to social entrepreneurship, surprisingly little is known about when, how and why it succeeds or fails in addressing social problems. Beyond theoretical contributions of interest to scholars, the project has potential implications for the expanding regional, national and supranational institutions that have turned to social entrepreneurship in the face of scarce public funding and growing socio-economic inequalities. Study findings could possibly offer valuable insights for tailoring social entrepreneurship policies to local needs, opportunities, and power structures, as well as for identifying when alternative (or additional) actors and initiatives might be leveraged to address poverty and social exclusion. This dissertation uses mixed methods to investigate the factors and mechanisms that help and/or hinder social entrepreneurship in addressing poverty and social exclusion. The empirical context is social entrepreneurship in Paris and its surrounding 'banlieues' - communities marked by disproportionate levels of poverty, unemployment and additional forms of exclusion. Part I uses national-level quantitative data (an original dataset of 1033 French social enterprises selected on the basis of organizational form and entrepreneurial profile) to investigate the conditions under which social entrepreneurs/enterprises succeed or fail in terms of their economic survival and social mission(s). Using event history analysis (2002-2015), the project analyzes the founding and survival rates of social enterprises based on their geographic location, sector of activity, founder and community characteristics, and commercial and social organizational missions. Part II relies on semi-structured interviews to investigate how different actors construct the meaning of success, failure and impact in social entrepreneurship, and the mechanisms that limit SE's ability to reduce social exclusion in communities. Interviews are conducted with three groups of actors in the Ile-de-France region of France: (1) founders/current directors of social enterprises, (2) strategic directors of organizations providing support (e.g., financial, training, mentorship, networking) to social entrepreneurs and enterprises, and (3) "unsuccessful" social entrepreneurs who had an entrepreneurial idea but did not ultimately found an organization and/or whose social enterprise was dissolved within a year of establishment. Interviews are transcribed and translated from French, analyzed first inductively, then systematically using qualitative coding software (Atlas.ti). The quantitative dataset, findings, codebook, and aggregate summary data from Atlas.ti will be made available to the public, while executive summaries will be provided to each participating organization/individual as well as interested policy-makers and public institutions.