RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Research Proposal



Research Proposal

Title

Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development in Developing Countries through a Critical Realist Perspective

Research Objective

This paper aims at answering this problematic by using a case study approach in the attempt of furthering the understanding of how social enterprises are created and finding if there is a pattern in this process of value creation in the settings of civil society organization in Romania. Therefore, five Romanian social enterprises developed and managed by civil society organizations have been purposively chosen for facilitating cross-case comparisons (Eisenhardt, 1989).

Literature Review

Social entrepreneurship is an emerging field that has received growing considerations from both practitioners and academics in the last two decades. The body of research on this field draws on the theoretical framework of entrepreneurship as social entrepreneurs are seen as a breed of entrepreneurs (Dees, 1998). However, the literature review shows that there is still limited empirical research based on “formal hypotheses and rigorous methods” (Short et. al, 2009:161). Similar to the evolution of entrepreneurship as a field of study (Mair & Martí, 2006), the focus so far in defining social entrepreneurship has been more on social entrepreneurial individuals, the motivation behind such an undertaking (Vasakarla, 2008; Weerawardena & Mort, 2006; Koe Hwee Nga & Shamuganathan, 2010), its outcomes (McDonald, 2007; ), forms of social enterprises (Townsend & Hart, 2008; Spear & Bidet, 2005; Lindsay & Hems, 2004; Mancino & Thomas, 2005), but there is little empirical research on how social enterprises are developed and the process of value creation (Haugh, 2007).

Social enterprises are recognized as “hybrid entities” having both social and economic objectives (Townsend & Hart, 2008), which makes it difficult to mark the boundaries of this concept (Mair & Martí, 2006; Peredo & McLean, 2006; Martin & Osberg, 2007; Short et al, 2009). The literature review revealed that are two views regarding the place of SEs: some scholars place this concept in the for-profit world (Hartigan, 2006) putting emphasis on limited or no profit distribution (Massetti, 2008); but the majority of the research shows that this concept is most often associated with the nonprofit sector (Peredo & McLean, 2006; Lindsay & Hems, 2004). A survey regarding the use of the term „„social entrepreneurship?? in academic and non-academic publication show that 83% of these references use examples from the non-profit sector concluding that this is “overwhelmingly a non-profit sector phenomenon?? (Peredo and McLean, 2006:61).

It is argued that the choice for one form or the other is greatly influenced by the institutional environment and its role in limiting or facilitating resource acquisition (Townsend & Hart, 2008). There are only a few countries that have a specific legal entity recognized as a social enterprise: the Community Interest Company (CIC) in UK, the société coopérative d?intérêt collectif (SCIC) in France, the entreprise à finalité sociale in Belgium, the social cooperative in Italy, the social solidarity co-operative in Portugal, the social initiative co-operative in Spain, the social co-operative with limited liability in Greece, the Sole Proprietorship Company in Ukraine, the low profit limited liability company (L3C) ...