An Alternative Model for The Socio-Economic Sustainability of Social Enterprise

Abstract

The goal of this study was to come up with an alternative way for a social enterprise to stay in business. Social enterprise has two goals: helping to solve social problems and making money. This situation contributed to the complexity of social enterprise operations and potentially influenced their sustainability prospects. Thus, the discussion about how to maintain the sustainability of social enterprises became urgent. By reviewing some recent proposed sustainability models of social enterprise and elaborating them with a new institutional economics framework, this study proposed a model that provided guidance on how to promote social enterprise's sustainability. The model revealed that innovation, which flourished in the presence of greater dynamic capability, became the driving force behind the socio-economic sustainability of social enterprise. In this case, the subject, who managed the opportunities and optimized the resources and technology under the influence of the ecosystem, determined the dynamic capability of a social enterprise. In addition, the contextual institutions played a role in all phases of achieving socio-economic sustainability.