Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship, Failure, South Africa Social entrepreneurs are often viewed as catalyst for the development of a more equal society in terms of employment, innovation and sustainable growth. Within the... [ view full abstract ]
Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship, Failure, South Africa
Social entrepreneurs are often viewed as catalyst for the development of a more equal society in terms of employment, innovation and sustainable growth. Within the American approach to social entrepreneurship the role of the individual with entrepreneurial motivation, the so-called change-maker, is viewed as important to promote and achieve this transformation in society. The core of change makers’ activity is to address societal problems and needs through innovative processes, as he aims at creating social value.
During the process of establishment and consolidation of a social business, the social entrepreneur faces a set of different opportunities but also barriers that influence their success or failure. In social entrepreneurship failure can be seen as inability to build a sustainable venture and, consequently, failure in achieving predefined social objectives. For example, the mobilization of different resources, such as financial and human resources can be a potential block for the engagement of social entrepreneurs in bringing about social change. Besides resource dependency, some authors explain the lack of success of social ventures, using insights from different domains such as institutional, human and social capital theories.
The South African environment has specific characteristics namely a poor governance related with post-independence dynamics, high rates of unemployment and poverty, and deep-rooted racial segregation resulting in significant inequality. South Africa is also characterized by the social trap where individuals, organizations are incapable to collaborate due to the lack of trust and social capital, being consequently an inhibitor factor for the sustainable growth.
Failure is often simply understood as the opposite of success rather than an important part of the learning process. Normally scholars’ discussions are associated with best practices and their transposition to different projects, giving a special attention to whom is making success. Nevertheless, learning and bringing more value to the field through an analysis of unsuccessful ventures is also essential to understand the barriers that lead to the ultimate failure of the social venture, being those related to external constraints or internal factors. Failures have thus not to be stigmatized, but thoroughly analysed and discussed as sources of experiential value.
Our case study will constitute a gateway to a deeper analysis of the issues leading to failure and their restitution to the field under the form of acknowledgements. The main aim of the paper is, in fact, investigating and analyzing the roots of failure of a social venture, in the particular context of South Africa. We will examine the case from two perspectives. In first instance we will focus on the individual dimension of the social entrepreneur, shifting attention towards the main stakeholders (key-actors of the network) involved in the creation and development of the social initiative in a second time. To collect the data will be used semi-structured interviews, both for the social entrepreneurs as for the key-actors. Our main expected contribution is engaging academics and social entrepreneurs in a debate around failure that would challenge the predominant negative view of the concept and rehabilitate it as fruitful learning opportunity.
