Innovation in Social Entrepreneurship: How Social Enterprises Innovate in Their Organization

Abstract

We examined how social enterprises are innovative in their organization, in order to pursue their mission and remain sustainable in the long-term. With the objective to investigate the innovation in social entrepreneurship, in the component organization, it was developed research of social enterprises, regardless of their location - worldwide - and made a selection (taking into account their activity, size and relevance). Thereafter, it was constituted a database, and a questionnaire, tested, and placed to nearly 1,300 social enterprises of various sizes and parts of the globe, having been received 254 responses that resulted in 106 validated responses, which were considered for the later stages of this work. Research and study of the most relevant theory were performed. In what concerns to innovation in the organization, we find the following performance in terms of respondents who agree moderately, very or completely that their social enterprises innovate: in the form of organization, 54%; in the methodology to encourage volunteers, 64%; in the training plan, 73%; in the motivation plan, 48%; in the compensation and incentives plan, 49%; and in the model to support communities, 78%. The data point to less innovation in the form of organization, in the compensation and incentives plan, and in the motivation plan.