Creating social impact: A critical outlook on social entrepreneurship education

Purpose This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE) on employees’ social entrepreneurial performance (SEP), with innovative orientation and social inclusion serving as mediating mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the resource-based view, the authors surveyed 325 employees from the Indian information technology sector and analyzed the data using partial least squares-structural equation modeling. Findings The findings indicate that CSE has a significant positive influence on SEP. Moreover, this relationship is amplified through employees’ innovative orientation and their experience of social inclusion. Originality/value By elucidating these mediating pathways, this study extends resource-based view theory into the domain of organizational social entrepreneurship and offers novel insights into how firms can cultivate socially entrepreneurial behavior among employees. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how inclusive and innovation-oriented corporate environments can drive employee-led social impact. Moreover, the authors discuss the implications of the findings for theory and future research.

This study estimates the impact of social entrepreneurship on poverty in Indonesia and its regional variation. Using Susenas and Sakernas 2014 and 2017, Social Entrepreneurship Index (SEI) is constructed at the provincial level aggregating social, economic and environmental dimensions. Key findings show the social dimension is declining while economic and environmental dimensions rise; SEI slightly declines with Java–Bali–Kalimantan leading while Eastern Indonesia lags; urban–rural SEI disparities persist; and higher SEI reduces poverty rates. The study recommends prioritizing investment in Eastern Indonesia, strengthening the social dimension, and adopting differentiated urban–rural strategies for environmental and economic improvements.

This article provides a systematic scientific study of the legal and organizational foundations for the reintegration of war veterans into the socio-economic life of society through the development of the social entrepreneurship sector. The relevance of the research is driven by unprecedented challenges facing Ukraine: as of the spring of 2026, the number of veterans has exceeded 1.7 million, many of whom have complex injuries and disabilities. This necessitates a fundamental shift in the social protection paradigm – moving from a paternalistic model of welfare payments to a model of active engagement and economic agency. For the first time within a comprehensive legal analysis, this work integrates labor law concepts, approaches to adult vocational education, and systemic modeling of social processes. The author argues that social entrepreneurship is the most appropriate tool for adaptation, as it allows veterans to maintain the value-based identity of “serving the community” inherent in military service, while simultaneously ensuring financial independence. The study is based on a critical analysis of global models: the American “Hiring Our Heroes” and “Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business” systems, the Israeli “Talpiot” program focusing on the high-tech sector, and the British model of competitive tendering for reintegration services. Systemic legal barriers in Ukrainian legislation are identified and classified. First, the absence of a validation procedure for informal education creates a “qualification gap” between real combat command experience and a veteran’s official civilian status in the labor market. Second, there is a legal vacuum in defining the status of a “social enterprise,” which precludes targeted state support. Third, the study identifies the low efficiency of existing tax incentives for employers, who perceive hiring veterans as a risk factor rather than an investment in high-quality human capital. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the justification for introducing a special legal regime for “Veteran Social Enterprises” (VSEs). The author proposes clear criteria for identifying such entities: a minimum of 50% veterans among employees, limitations on profit distribution in favor of reinvesting in the social mission, and mandatory psychological support for personnel. Proposals are formulated for amending current legislation, including the Laws of Ukraine “On the Status of War Veterans,” “On Education,” and “On Professional Development of Employees.” Specifically, the development of a national “Correspondence Directory” (modeled after the American MOS Crosswalk) is proposed to automatically equate military duties with civilian managerial and technical qualifications. A distinct emphasis is placed on the legal framework for “trauma-informed learning.” The author argues that the state must legislatively establish requirements for educational programs for veterans that account for the specifics of cognitive adaptation after combat operations. A mechanism is proposed for creating regional inclusive business incubators operating on the principles of public-private partnership. The study concludes that the successful adaptation of veterans through social entrepreneurship will transform a potential risk group into a “locomotive” of post-war recovery. This will ensure a transition from passive consumption of budget resources to job creation and the strengthening of social cohesion within communities. The article holds practical value for legislative activities, local government bodies, and non-governmental organizations involved in veteran affairs.

ABSTRACT This study explores a new paradigm of entrepreneurial leadership among hospitality small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Khon Kaen, Thailand, by examining the influence of entrepreneurs’ strategic competencies on business performance. It emphasizes the role of internal capabilities and intangible resources in generating competitive advantage within the hospitality sector. Qualitative research was employed, including thematic and cooccurrence analyses. Data were collected through open-ended questionnaires administered to hospitality SMEs and using ATLAS.ti 25. The findings reveal six core themes: customer relationship management (CRM), social media adoption, entrepreneurial leadership, sustainable entrepreneurship, resource-based capabilities, and business performance. CRM drives sales growth, brand image, innovation, leadership, and sustainability, supporting long-term growth and differentiation. The results demonstrate the need to balance short-term digital engagement strategies with long-term competency development, situating entrepreneurial leadership within the context of a developing country’s hospitality sector. This study proposes an integrative framework that explains how SMEs mobilize intangible resources to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

ABSTRACT Social entrepreneurship research has focused on the importance of ventures that create social value with economic sustainability. However, a comprehensive understanding of the drivers of social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) is less well developed and clearly requires research from the perspective of leadership and personal value orientations. This article addresses this research gap by drawing on the theory of planned behavior and effectuation theory to explore the influence of servant leadership on SEI through the mediating effects of effectuation and the moderating effects of collectivism. An empirical analysis of 287 university students using partial least squares structural equation modeling showed that servant leadership—empowerment, service, and vision—significantly influences SEI. The influence of servant leadership on SEI is partially mediated by effectuation—experimentation, affordable loss, flexibility, and precommitment. Moreover, the results show that collectivism—an internalized value that focuses on interdependence and shared responsibility—positively moderates the relationship between servant leadership and SEI. The findings indicate that collectivism serves as an important boundary condition for translating leadership values into social intent. This research makes theoretical contributions by linking leadership orientation with entrepreneurial cognition and has implications for educators and policy makers interested in developing a new wave of socially responsible entrepreneurs.

ABSTRACT Successful places require institutional alignments with land/property uses to which both private and public sectors contribute and respond. One such alignment resulted in the co-location of retail and urban centres in the UK. However, this institutional alignment has been increasingly challenged. This paper explores the micro experiences of institutional alignment and subsequent misalignment within a longitudinal case study of the deprived but historic market town of Bishop Auckland in North-East England. Whereas retail and urban centre co-location had been maintained for decades, a new alignment emerged in the 2010s around car-oriented out-of-centre retail/leisure growth. This public sector-supported track maintained and strengthened the retail/leisure centre status of the struggling town and its associated employment. The urban centre subsequently suffered, with its remodelling becoming the second policy track. A new visitor destination alignment, developed between a benevolent entrepreneurial organization and the local authority, led to partial regeneration of the struggling centre. While supportive local authority activities were essential, the findings highlight the importance of social or commercial productive entrepreneurship to developing innovative new urban centre uses. Situating this case study within a UK context, this paper conceptualizes the implications of planning constraint, its removal, and the resultant challenges of place remodelling.

Introduction Social media is increasingly used by social businesses to engage stakeholders and organize support, but little is known about the processes that transform communication into supporting behavior. This study creates and evaluates a sequential mediation model that uses public knowledge and trust to transform social media communication into public support intention. The research uses structural equation modeling, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and survey data from 400 active social media users in an urban Indian setting to investigate the suggested links. The results show that public knowledge and trust are greatly increased by social media communication, and that public support intention is largely predicted by trust. Public knowledge functions via trust rather than directly influencing support intention. The association between social media communication and awareness is somewhat mediated by trust, while the relationship between communication and support intention is entirely mediated by awareness and trust combined, according to the mediation analysis. These findings demonstrate how communication effects develop along a cognitive–relational route, highlighting the crucial role that trust plays in transforming awareness into support. By verifying a mechanism-based model of stakeholder involvement in digital settings and providing useful insights for creating trust-oriented social media strategies, this study adds to the literature on communication and social entrepreneurship.

Social ventures operate at the intersection of business and social mission, facing competing institutional logics and scarce resources while striving to generate sustainable social impact. To navigate these challenges, leadership plays a crucial role in enabling team processes that foster creativity and innovation. Building on the resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities framework, this study examines how empowering leadership – characterised by delegation, autonomy and participative decision-making – enhances team creativity and innovation in social ventures. Specifically, we test a sequential mediation model in which empowering leadership influences team innovation through team dynamic capabilities and team creativity, controlling for servant leadership. Data were collected from social ventures operating in Brazil. Results indicate that empowering leadership positively affects team dynamic capabilities. The indirect effects of empowering leadership on both creativity and innovation were also significant. These findings highlight empowering leadership as a critical trigger of adaptive and creative team processes that sustain innovation in social ventures.

ABSTRACT This paper examines how organizational identity evolves to sustain social purpose in long-lived family firms. Drawing on an online ethnographic case study of Peter Café Sport – a century-old maritime family business in the Azores – we trace how founding narratives, legacy-based commitments, and deep relational networks shaped responses during the COVID-19 crisis. Our findings show that organizational identity, often viewed as a stabilizing force, can also be a generative resource for adaptive action, promoting the balance between social and economic logics even in times of disruption. We demonstrate that the founder’s social involvement not only persists but can be reactivated decades after inception, enabling the reaffirmation of the firm’s enduring role as a community anchor. By explaining how hybrid economic – social logics sustain across organizational life stages, the study advances understanding of social entrepreneurship in crisis, emphasizing the role of family organizational identity beyond start-up contexts, and deepens insight into how small family enterprises preserve and reinterpret their social mission over time.

Doing well by doing good: The role of entrepreneurial mindfulness, social capital, and moral obligation in social entrepreneurial intentions.

Volunteering as a catalyst to social entrepreneurship

Building food security: The role of social entrepreneurship and agripreneurial ecosystems

Mismatch in perceptions and knowledge? Prominent entrepreneurial resources through collaborative workspaces for social entrepreneurs

In the context of the post-war transformation of Ukraine’s economy, the search for new approaches to ensuring the resilience and adaptability of HoReCa enterprises is becoming increasingly relevant, as the sector has been significantly affected by crisis phenomena caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war. Traditional business models are increasingly proving insufficient to address contemporary challenges, which necessitates the integration of socially oriented approaches into entrepreneurial activity. In contemporary scientific research, social entrepreneurship is considered one of the key directions of business transformation capable of combining economic efficiency with the creation of social value. At the same time, existing scientific publications pay insufficient attention to the issues of comprehensive integration of social entrepreneurship into the activities of HoReCa enterprises under conditions of wartime and post-crisis transformations, which determines the need for further research in this area.The article provides a theoretical generalization of approaches to social entrepreneurship, business resilience, and business model transformation in the HoReCa sector. The expediency of integrating social entrepreneurship at the operational and strategic levels of business activity is substantiated. A model of multilevel integration of social entrepreneurship is proposed, allowing the combination of economic and social outcomes in the functioning of HoReCa enterprises. An expert survey conducted among industry representatives confirmed practical interest in implementing socially oriented approaches and identified the main barriers to their integration, including limited resources and the lack of strategic vision. The results of the study suggest that the integration of social entrepreneurship contributes to increasing the resilience, competitiveness, and social significance of HoReCa enterprises in the context of the post-war transformation of Ukraine’s economy.

ABSTRACT This article presents a collection of essays on African Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research for Sustainable Development, authored by young scholars from the 2024 PhD Winter School at Bern University of Applied Sciences. To help harness the transformative power of innovation and entrepreneurship for sustainable development, the five essays explore necessary change on multiple levels – including the institutional, ecosystem, industry, and individual levels – as well as key concepts such as social entrepreneurship and affordable innovation. Collectively, they emphasize the importance of contextualized research in entrepreneurship and innovation. This multi-voice article serves both as a call to action and a collaborative platform for PhD students from Africa and Europe to jointly generate new insights into how entrepreneurship and innovation can contribute to sustainable development in Africa. The collection is framed by an introduction and conclusion written by the editors of the multi-voice article.

Retraction notice: Exploring the link between social work, entrepreneurial leadership, social embeddedness, social entrepreneurship and firm performance: a case of SMES owned by Chinese ethnic community in Turkey

ABSTRACT The increasing use of immersive and hybrid digital technologies in practice-based e-learning raises questions about cognitive complexity and its influence on learning outcomes. While immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and AI-supported simulations offer rich experiential affordances, they may also introduce cognitive overload when multiple design elements are combined. In this study, immersive learning is conceptualised along a continuum ranging from fully immersive XR to hybrid and semi-immersive simulations. A multidimensional framework for evaluating cognitive complexity in practice-based learning designs is proposed. It operationalises cognitive complexity across four dimensions: learning goals and competencies, interaction in the problem space, social learning and presentation of the problem situation. The framework is empirically applied to learning modules of the e-Diploma Social Entrepreneurship prototype, which integrates VR, AI chatbots, serious games and collaborative digital tools. Using pre- and post-tests with 260 learners, we examine how different complexity profiles relate to knowledge gain. The results show that learning outcomes are not determined by immersion alone but by the alignment between experiential learning phases, problem-solving demands, sensory engagement and social organisation. The findings highlight the need for deliberate orchestration of cognitive complexity in immersive practice-based learning designs.

ABSTRACT Social entrepreneurship has increasingly intensified as an alternative innovation to social provision in the last decade, largely because the development of public services is often considered rudimentary. Drawing on 27 interview data from 13 institutionalized social entrepreneurship (ISE) initiatives across Indonesia, we compared how ISE is adapted between state-driven and corporate-driven initiatives and improves service delivery, overcomes financial constraints, and enhances organizational management from a service provider-user perspective. Findings indicate that ISE can provide efficient solutions to social problems at lower governance layers, such as villages and hamlets. This is also chiefly because there is less division of labour at the low governance levels, which means that ties are assembled in informal networks. The strong ties within community relationships influence community leaders’ motivation to promote ISE, even if it means maintaining political domination and patron-client interests. Conversely, at higher levels of government – specifically central and provincial tiers – ISE initiatives tend to lose their relevance to targeted communities due to complex procedural and bureaucratic modulations. This article contributes to the discussions on context-specific factors shaping Collaborative Public Sector Innovation (CPSI), particularly the roles of informal networks and local power dynamics in fostering social innovation and expected impact.

This study investigated the role of social entrepreneurship in advancing sustainable livelihoods and reviving traditional craftsmanship in the Kashmir Valley, India. A survey was conducted among 238 artisans and social entrepreneurs engaged in tourism-related activities. The results indicate a statistically significant positive relationship between artisan empowerment and well-being, suggesting that empowerment serves as a key mechanism through which tourism social entrepreneurship enhances social and psychological outcomes among artisans. This investigation extends the application of the sustainable livelihood framework by examining the role of tourism social entrepreneurship in shaping artisan empowerment and community well-being within the specific context of Kashmir.