This work deals with the current support landscape for Social Entrepreneurship (SE) in the DACH region. It provides answers to the questions of which actors support SE, how and why they do so, and which social ventures are supported. In addition, there is a focus on the motives for supporting SE as well as the decision-making process while selecting social ventures. In both cases, it is examined whether certain characteristics of the decision-maker and the organization influence the weighting of motives and decision-making criteria. More precise, the gender of the decision-maker as well as the kind of support by the organization is analyzed. The concrete examples of foundations and venture philanthropy organizations (VPOs) will give a deeper look at the SE support motives and decision-making behavior. In a quantitative empirical data collection, by means of an online survey, decision-makers from SE supporting organizations in the DACH region were asked to participate in a conjoint experiment and to fill in a questionnaire. The results illustrate a positive development of the SE support landscape in the German-speaking area as well as the heterogeneity of the organizational types, the financial and non-financial support instruments and the supported social ventures. Regarding the motives for SE-support, a general endeavor to change and to create an impact has proven to be particularly important at the organizational and the individual level. At the individual level female and male decision-makers have subtle differences in their motives to promote SE. Robustness checks by analyzing certain subsamples provide information about that. Individuals from foundations and VPOs, on the other hand, hardly differ from each other, even though here individuals with a rather social background face individuals with a business background. At the organizational level crucial differences can be identified for the motives, depending on the nature of the organization's support, and again comparing foundations with VPOs. Especially for the motives 'financial interests', 'reputation' and 'employee development' there are big differences between the considered groups. Eventually, by means of cluster analysis and still with respect to the support motives, two types of decision-makers could be determined on both the individual and the organizational level.
In terms of the decision-making behavior, and the weighting of certain decision-making criteria respectively, it has emerged that it is worthwhile having a closer look: The 'importance of the social problem' and the 'authenticity of the start-up team' are consistently the two most important criteria when it comes to selecting social ventures for supporting them. However, comparing male and female decision-makers, foundations and VPOs, as well as the two groups of financially and non-financially supporting organizations, there are certain specifics which are highly relevant for SE practice. Here as well a cluster analysis uncovered patterns of criteria weighting by identifying three different types of decision-makers.
Social entrepreneurship is a successful activity to solve social problems and economic
challenges. Social entrepreneurship uses for-profit industry techniques and tools to build
financially sound businesses that provide nonprofit services. Social entrepreneurial activities
also lead to the achievement of sustainable development goals. However, due to the complex,
hybrid nature of the business, social entrepreneurial activities are typically supported by macrolevel
determinants. To expand our knowledge of how beneficial macro-level determinants can
be, this work examines empirical evidence about the impact of macro-level determinants on
social entrepreneurship. Another aim of this dissertation is to examine the impact at the micro
level, as the growth ambitions of social and commercial entrepreneurs differ. At the beginning,
the introductory section is explained in Chapter 1, which contains the motivation for the
research, the research question, and the structure of the work.
There is an ongoing debate about the origin and definition of social entrepreneurship.
Therefore, the numerous phenomena of social entrepreneurship are examined theoretically in
the previous literature. To determine the common consensus on the topic, Chapter 2 presents
the theoretical foundations and definition of social entrepreneurship. The literature shows that
a variety of determinants at the micro and macro levels are essential for the emergence of social
entrepreneurship as a distinctive business model (Hartog & Hoogendoorn, 2011; Stephan et
al., 2015; Hoogendoorn, 2016). It is impossible to create a society based on a social mission without the support of micro and macro-level-level determinants. This work examines the
determinants and consequences of social entrepreneurship from different methodological
perspectives. The theoretical foundations of the micro- and macro-level determinants
influencing social entrepreneurial activities were discussed in Chapter 3
The purpose of reproducibility in research is to confirm previously published results
(Hubbard et al., 1998; Aguinis & Solarino, 2019). However, due to the lack of data, lack of
transparency of methodology, reluctance to publish, and lack of interest from researchers, there
is a lack of promoting replication of the existing research study (Baker, 2016; Hedges &
Schauer, 2019a). Promoting replication studies has been regularly emphasized in the business
and management literature (Kerr et al., 2016; Camerer et al., 2016). However, studies that
provide replicability of the reported results are considered rare in previous research (Burman
et al., 2010; Ryan & Tipu, 2022). Based on the research of Köhler and Cortina (2019), an
empirical study on this topic is carried out in Chapter 4 of this work.
Given this focus, researchers have published a large body of research on the impact of microand
macro-level determinants on social inclusion, although it is still unclear whether these
studies accurately reflect reality. It is important to provide conceptual underpinnings to the
field through a reassessment of published results (Bettis et al., 2016). The results of their
research make it abundantly clear that the macro determinants support social entrepreneurship.
In keeping with the more narrative approach, which is a crucial concern and requires attention,
Chapter 5 considered the reproducibility of previous results, particularly on the topic of social
entrepreneurship. We replicated the results of Stephan et al. (2015) to establish the trend of
reproducibility and validate the specific conclusions they drew. The literal and constructive
replication in the dissertation inspired us to explore technical replication research on social
entrepreneurship. Chapter 6 evaluates the fundamental characteristics that have proven to be key factors in the
growth of social ventures. The current debate reviews and references literature that has
specifically focused on the development of social entrepreneurship. An empirical analysis of
factors directly related to the ambitious growth of social entrepreneurship is also carried out.
Numerous social entrepreneurial groups have been studied concerning this association. Chapter
6 compares the growth ambitions of social and traditional (commercial) entrepreneurship as
consequences at the micro level. This study examined many characteristics of social and
commercial entrepreneurs' growth ambitions. Scholars have claimed to some extent that the
growth of social entrepreneurship differs from commercial entrepreneurial activities due to
objectivity differences (Lumpkin et al., 2013; Garrido-Skurkowicz et al., 2022). Qualitative
research has been used in studies to support the evidence on related topics, including Gupta et
al (2020) emphasized that research needs to focus on specific concepts of social
entrepreneurship for the field to advance. Therefore, this study provides a quantitative,
analysis-based assessment of facts and data. For this purpose, a data set from the Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2015 was used, which examined 12,695 entrepreneurs from
38 countries. Furthermore, this work conducted a regression analysis to evaluate the influence
of various social and commercial characteristics of entrepreneurship on economic growth in
developing countries. Chapter 7 briefly explains future directions and practical/theoretical
implications.
Zeitgleich mit stetig wachsenden gesellschaftlichen Herausforderungen haben im vergangenen Jahrzehnt Sozialunternehmen stark an Bedeutung gewonnen. Sozialunternehmen verfolgen das Ziel, mit unternehmerischen Mitteln gesellschaftliche Probleme zu lösen. Da der Fokus von Sozialunternehmen nicht hauptsächlich auf der eigenen Gewinnmaximierung liegt, haben sie oftmals Probleme, geeignete Unternehmensfinanzierungen zu erhalten und Wachstumspotenziale zu verwirklichen.
Zur Erlangung eines tiefergehenden Verständnisses des Phänomens der Sozialunternehmen untersucht der erste Teil dieser Dissertation anhand von zwei Studien auf der Basis eines Experiments das Entscheidungsverhalten der Investoren von Sozialunternehmen. Kapitel 2 betrachtet daher das Entscheidungsverhalten von Impact-Investoren. Der von diesen Investoren verfolgte Investmentansatz „Impact Investing“ geht über eine reine Orientierung an Renditen hinaus. Anhand eines Experiments mit 179 Impact Investoren, die insgesamt 4.296 Investitionsentscheidungen getroffen haben, identifiziert eine Conjoint-Studie deren wichtigste Entscheidungskriterien bei der Auswahl der Sozialunternehmen. Kapitel 3 analysiert mit dem Fokus auf sozialen Inkubatoren eine weitere spezifische Gruppe von Unterstützern von Sozialunternehmen. Dieses Kapitel veranschaulicht auf der Basis des Experiments die Motive und Entscheidungskriterien der Inkubatoren bei der Auswahl von Sozialunternehmen sowie die von ihnen angebotenen Formen der nichtfinanziellen Unterstützung. Die Ergebnisse zeigen unter anderem, dass die Motive von sozialen Inkubatoren bei der Unterstützung von Sozialunternehmen unter anderem gesellschaftlicher, finanzieller oder reputationsbezogener Natur sind.
Der zweite Teil erörtert auf der Basis von zwei quantitativ empirischen Studien, inwiefern die Registrierung von Markenrechten sich zur Messung sozialer Innovationen eignet und mit finanziellem und sozialem Wachstum von sozialen Startups in Verbindung steht. Kapitel 4 erörtert, inwiefern Markenregistrierungen zur Messung von sozialen Innovationen dienen können. Basierend auf einer Textanalyse der Webseiten von 925 Sozialunternehmen (> 35.000 Unterseiten) werden in einem ersten Schritt vier Dimensionen sozialer Innovationen (Innovations-, Impact-, Finanz- und Skalierbarkeitsdimension) ermittelt. Darauf aufbauend betrachtet dieses Kapitel, wie verschiedene Markencharakteristiken mit den Dimensionen sozialer Innovationen zusammenhängen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass insbesondere die Anzahl an registrierten Marken als Indikator für soziale Innovationen (alle Dimensionen) dient. Weiterhin spielt die geografische Reichweite der registrierten Marken eine wichtige Rolle. Aufbauend auf den Ergebnissen von Kapitel 4 untersucht Kapitel 5 den Einfluss von Markenregistrierungen in frühen Unternehmensphasen auf die weitere Entwicklung der hybriden Ergebnisse von sozialen Startups. Im Detail argumentiert Kapitel 5, dass sowohl die Registrierung von Marken an sich als auch deren verschiedene Charakteristiken unterschiedlich mit den sozialen und ökonomischen Ergebnissen von sozialen Startups in Verbindung stehen. Anhand eines Datensatzes von 485 Sozialunternehmen zeigen die Analysen aus Kapitel 5, dass soziale Startups mit einer registrierten Marke ein vergleichsweise höheres Mitarbeiterwachstum aufweisen und einen größeren gesellschaftlichen Beitrag leisten.
Die Ergebnisse dieser Dissertation weiten die Forschung im Social Entrepreneurship-Bereich weiter aus und bieten zahlreiche Implikationen für die Praxis. Während Kapitel 2 und 3 das Verständnis über die Eigenschaften von nichtfinanziellen und finanziellen Unterstützungsorganisationen von Sozialunternehmen vergrößern, schaffen Kapitel 4 und 5 ein größeres Verständnis über die Bedeutung von Markenanmeldungen für Sozialunternehmen.