Building a supportive ecosystem for social entrepreneurs: mobilizing social capital

Leyen, Bart (1);
Dentchev, Nikolay (1);
Diaz Gonzalez, Abel (2);
Roncancio, Jason (1)

Extended Abstract

Social entrepreneurs (SEs) resolve societal issues e.g., poverty, hunger, and inequality (James Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skillern, 2006; Mair & Martí, 2006). To do this, SEs rely on the support of others to achieve their goals (Bloom & Dees, 2008; Montgomery et al., 2012) because they have difficulties attracting the necessary resources to address identified social problems (Dacin, Dacin, & Matear, 2010; Saebi, Foss, & Linder, 2019). Therefore, in this context, ecosystem thinking (Adner, 2006; Isenberg, 2011) is a constructive way to understand how various actors can support SEs (Alvedalen & Boschma, 2017; Spigel, 2017).

A supportive ecosystem for SEs addresses the divergent needs of SEs (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei–Skillern, 2006; Bloom & Dees, 2008), as it includes impact capital, volunteers, a social problem pool and services that are free (Audretsch, Eichler, & Schwarz, 2022). This ecosystem has features of an innovation ecosystem since the actors are aligning themselves for a focal value proposition to materialize, i.e., the social missions (De Bruin, Roy, & Grant, 2022). Therefore, SEs should take special care in building their ecosystem (Bloom & Dees, 2008).

Different ecosystem processes are explained in the literature e.g., relationships (Spigel, 2017), culture (Roundy, 2016), policies (Stam, 2015), and the ecosystem as structure (Adner, 2017), however, ecosystems remain largely undertheorized (Colombo, Dagnino, Lehmann, & Salmador, 2019; Roundy & Lyons, 2021). Only a few studies have investigated and suggested systematically how to build ecosystems (Lichtenstein, Lyons, & Kutzhanova, 2004; Roundy, Bradshaw, & Brockman, 2018; Theodoraki, Messeghem, & Rice, 2018), but these black-box studies do not identify causal relationships (Guéneau, Chabaud, & Sauvannet, 2022). The ecosystem-building literature is rather generic, it is often limited to principles (e.g. Feld, 2012; Isenberg, 2010), unclear about the unit of analysis (e.g. Thompson, Purdy, & Ventresca, 2018), and is not focussed on SEs (on exception is Cheah & Ho, 2019). This knowledge gap has been expressed by Spigel & Harrison (2018: 165) who call to unpack the ecosystem: “we must unpack the ecosystem to better understand how entrepreneurs gather resources and support from an ecosystem.”

To address the knowledge gap above, we argue that by unpacking how social capital (SC) in an ecosystem can be mobilized in support of SEs, we contribute with a theory on how ecosystems can be built. To build an ecosystem supporting SEs, we are proposing a three-stepped process model that includes strategizing, socialization, and engagement that explains how SC can be mobilized in support of SEs. We are applying the theoretical lens of SC (Putnam, 1992) since social relations interconnect ecosystems, and by focusing on the density of those interactions, the quality of an ecosystem can be explained (Spigel, Kitagawa, & Mason, 2020).

This paper contributes to SE ecosystem literature by identifying the processes in place for SEs to generate the required SC that trigger support from their ecosystem. By looking inside the ecosystem black box, we extend SC theory as we offer a novel perspective on how SEs can build their ecosystem through the theoretical lens of SC. We extend the model of Theodoraki et al. (2018) by incorporating the needs of SEs into ecosystem-building theories since their barriers are divergent from conventional entrepreneurs (Audretsch et al., 2022; Austin et al., 2006; Bloom & Dees, 2008).

Keywords

Social entrepreneurship, Ecosystem, Ecosystem building, Social Capital, Social Impact.

Conceptual model:

References

Adner, R. 2006. Match Your Innovation Strategy to Your Innovation Ecosystem. Harvard Business Review, 84(4): 98.

Adner, R. 2017. Ecosystem as Structure: An Actionable Construct for Strategy. Journal of Management, 43(1): 39–58.

Alvedalen, J., & Boschma, R. 2017. A critical review of entrepreneurial ecosystems research: towards a future research agenda. European Planning Studies, 25(6): 887–903.

Audretsch, D. B., Eichler, G. M., & Schwarz, E. J. 2022. Emerging needs of social innovators and social innovation ecosystems. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 18(1): 217–254.

Austin, James, Stevenson, H., & Wei-Skillern, J. 2006. Social and commercial entrepreneurship: same, different, or both? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 30(1): 1–22.

Austin, J., Stevenson, H., & Wei–Skillern, J. 2006. Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same, Different, or Both? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 30(1): 1–22.

Bloom, P. N., & Dees, G. 2008. Cultivate your Ecosystem. Harvard Business Review www.ssireview.org.

Cheah, S., & Ho, Y. P. 2019. Building the Ecosystem for Social Entrepreneurship: University Social Enterprise Cases in Singapore. Science, Technology and Society, 24(3): 507–526.

Colombo, M. G., Dagnino, G. B., Lehmann, E. E., & Salmador, M. P. 2019. The governance of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Small Business Economics, 52(2): 419–428.

Dacin, P. A., Dacin, M. T., & Matear, M. 2010. Social Entrepreneurship: Why We Don’t Need a New Theory and How We Move Forward From Here. Academy  of  Management Perspectives, 24(3): 37–57.

De Bruin, A., Roy, M. J., & Grant, S. L. 2022. Advancing a Contextualized, Community-Centric Understanding of Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Business & Society.

Feld, B. 2012. Startup communities : building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city (1st ed.), vol. 148. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Guéneau, G., Chabaud, D., & Sauvannet, M. C. C. 2022. Opening entrepreneurial ecosystem’s black box: the power of networks in African low-income countries. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 18(2): 753–772.

Isenberg, D. 2010. How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution. Harvard Business Review, 88(6): 40–50.

Isenberg, D. 2011. The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Strategy as a New Paradigm for Economic Policy: Principles for Cultivating Entrepreneurship 1. Presentation at the Institute of International and European Affairs, 1(781): 1–13.

Lichtenstein, G. A., Lyons, T. S., & Kutzhanova, N. 2004. Building Entrepreneurial Communities: The Appropriate Role of Enterprise Development Activities. Community Development Society. Journal, 35(1): 5–24.

Mair, J., & Martí, I. 2006. Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight. Journal of World Business, 41(1): 36–44.

Montgomery, A. W., Dacin, P. A., & Dacin, M. T. 2012. Collective Social Entrepreneurship: Collaboratively Shaping Social Good. Journal of Business Ethics, 111(3): 375–388.

Putnam, R. D. 1992. Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy (1st ed.), vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Roundy, P., & Lyons, T. 2021. Where are the entrepreneurs? A call to theorize the micro-foundations and strategic organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Strategic Organization, 147612702110562.

Roundy, P. T. 2016. Start-up Community Narratives: The Discursive Construction of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.1177/0971355716650373, 25(2): 232–248.

Roundy, P. T., Bradshaw, M., & Brockman, B. K. 2018. The emergence of entrepreneurial ecosystems: A complex adaptive systems approach. Journal of Business Research, 86: 1–10.

Saebi, T., Foss, N. J., & Linder, S. 2019. Social Entrepreneurship Research: Past Achievements and Future Promises. Journal of Management, 45(1): 70–95.

Spigel, B. 2017. The Relational Organization of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 41(1): 49–72.

Spigel, B., Kitagawa, F., & Mason, C. 2020. A manifesto for researching entrepreneurial ecosystems. Local Economy, 35(5): 482–495.

Stam, E. 2015. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Regional Policy: A Sympathetic Critique. European Planning Studies, 23(9): 1759–1769.

Theodoraki, C., Messeghem, K., & Rice, M. P. 2018. A social capital approach to the development of sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: an explorative study. Small Business Economics, 51(1): 153–170.

Thompson, T. A., Purdy, J. M., & Ventresca, M. J. 2018. How entrepreneurial ecosystems take form: Evidence from social impact initiatives in Seattle. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 12(1): 96–116.