Social entrepreneurship and the institutional environment

Abstract

This study examines the effects of a country's institutional environment on economic social entrepreneurship. The measures of a country's institutional environment include Porter's social progress index (SPI) and the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness index (GCI). The GCI measures the economic environmental munificence of a country which supports entrepreneurial ventures. I used the SPI to measure social munificence or social welfare of a country. The dependent variable is the number of Ashoka social entrepreneurs working to address the economic needs in a nation. The study includes 82 countries with Ashoka fellows. Of the 82 countries, 58 countries had Ashoka economic social entrepreneur fellows. The control variables include the log of GNI per capita and the log of population. I hypothesised that the less the SPI, the greater the number of social entrepreneurs focusing on the economy. That is, the less the social munificence, the greater the need for social entrepreneurs.