IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijeven/v10y2018i2p202-235.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

SHEstainability: how relationship networks influence the idea generation in opportunity recognition process by female social entrepreneurs

Author

Listed:
  • Anna B. Spiegler
  • Jantje Halberstadt

Abstract

Despite the rapid growth of literature on social entrepreneurship and its increasing importance for social change and sustainability, little is known about how social entrepreneurship originates in different settings. In this study, we applied a gender-based perspective to analyse the origin and development of social entrepreneurship. Focusing on female social entrepreneurs in Namibia, we investigated how relationship networks sensitised women towards opportunities for social and sustainable innovations and who particularly influenced them during this process of idea generation and realisation. Using a mixed-method approach consisting of semi-structured interviews and egocentric network analysis, we identified an opportunity recognition process that differs from that of conventional ventures. Our results show that social innovation is not, e.g., due to gate-keepers but rather a result of everyday community interaction settings. This finding challenges current theories of (social) entrepreneurship, suggesting a need to further investigate the roles of gender and the socio-economic context.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna B. Spiegler & Jantje Halberstadt, 2018. "SHEstainability: how relationship networks influence the idea generation in opportunity recognition process by female social entrepreneurs," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(2), pages 202-235.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijeven:v:10:y:2018:i:2:p:202-235
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=92716
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jantje Halberstadt & Christoph Schank & Mark Euler & Rainer Harms, 2019. "Learning Sustainability Entrepreneurship by Doing: Providing a Lecturer-Oriented Service Learning Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Almudena Martínez-Campillo & María del Pilar Sierra-Fernández & Yolanda Fernández-Santos, 2019. "Service-Learning for Sustainability Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas: What Is Its Global Impact on Business University Students?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-21, September.
    3. Mercedes Barrachina Fernández & Maria del Carmen García-Centeno & Carmen Calderón Patier, 2021. "Women Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Review and Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-12, October.
    4. Isabell Tenner & Jacob Hörisch, 2021. "Diversity matters: the influence of gender diversity on the environmental orientation of entrepreneurial ventures," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(7), pages 1005-1023, September.
    5. Zavodny Pospisil Jan & Zavodna Lucie Sara, 2022. "An Insight to the World of Female Entrepreneurship: Systematic Literature Review of the Phenomenon using the Mckinsey 7S Model," Foundations of Management, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 51-66, January.
    6. Beldina Owalla & Cristian Gherhes & Tim Vorley & Chay Brooks, 2022. "Mapping SME productivity research: a systematic review of empirical evidence and future research agenda," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 1285-1307, March.
    7. Halberstadt, Jantje & Kollhoff, Sophia & Kraus, Sascha & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "Early bird or early worm? First-mover (dis)advantages and the success of web-based social enterprises," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijeven:v:10:y:2018:i:2:p:202-235. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=123 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.