A typology of social entrepreneuring models continued: empirical evidence from South Africa

Alex Bignotti; Kerrin Myres

AFAM Biennial Conference, 5TH BIENNIAL CONFERENCE - Nigeria 2020

Alex Bignotti, Kerrin Myres

Last modified: 2019-07-22

Abstract

Notwithstanding advances in the conceptual understanding of the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship, there have been calls to move beyond conceptual arguments and to ground definitions and conceptualisations of this field in empirical research, especially pertaining to the developing world. Owing to the socially embedded nature of social enterprises, the context in which social enterprises originate is a key determinant of their modus operandi. In South Africa, there is a lack of clarity on the nature and form of social enterprises, which is one of the causes of the lack of a legal framework for these organisations. This paper follows the trail of research on typologies of social entrepreneuring models by conducting an empirical study in South Africa. A sample of 453 social enterprises was drawn from existing social entrepreneurship networks in South Africa. Using a survey methodology, we collected data on domains of social entrepreneuring identified in previous studies and performed a cluster analysis to identify different types of social entrepreneuring models. The findings point to the existence of two typologies of social entrepreneuring models in South Africa: “non-profit companies” and “social enterprises”. This paper contributes to practice an in-depth understanding of social entrepreneuring models in South Africa. By showing that social enterprises in South Africa are partly unique to their context, this paper underscores the theoretical importance of the context in which social enterprises originate and operate when testing the universal validity of social entrepreneurship models.

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