Align or perish: Social enterprise network orchestration in Sub-Saharan Africa

Christian Busch and Harry Barkema

Journal of Business Venturing, 2022, vol. 37, issue 2

Abstract: Previous research has shown that networks are vital for scaling the impact of social enterprises. However, at present, insight into how and why social enterprises successfully orchestrate networks over time as they scale, particularly in the Sub-Saharan African emerging economy context, is scant. Theoretically sensitized by social network theory, our inductive study of six Kenyan social enterprises analyzed their phase-contingent network orchestration. Our findings show how and why entrepreneurial contextual bridging and circumventing social liability are important for initial scaling, whereas aligned capacity building as well as aligning incentives with political actors become necessary to develop and navigate social business ecosystems. In sum, we contribute a deeper understanding of how and why agentic network actions help social entrepreneurs achieve success as they scale in an emerging economy context.

Keywords: Business ecosystem; Comparative case study; Emerging economy; Kenya; Low-income context; Scaling; Social embeddedness; Social entrepreneurship; Social impact; Social networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbvent:v:37:y:2022:i:2:s0883902621000975

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106187

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