The document discusses the connection between social entrepreneurship and achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. It aims to determine whether social enterprises contribute to addressing global challenges and if they connect their work to the SDGs. Through literature review, website research, and interviews, the study will test hypotheses about social enterprises' impact on the SDGs and influence of the SDGs on their work.
The document discusses the connection between social entrepreneurship and achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. It aims to determine whether social enterprises contribute to addressing global challenges and if they connect their work to the SDGs. Through literature review, website research, and interviews, the study will test hypotheses about social enterprises' impact on the SDGs and influence of the SDGs on their work.
The document discusses the connection between social entrepreneurship and achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. It aims to determine whether social enterprises contribute to addressing global challenges and if they connect their work to the SDGs. Through literature review, website research, and interviews, the study will test hypotheses about social enterprises' impact on the SDGs and influence of the SDGs on their work.
The document discusses the connection between social entrepreneurship and achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. It aims to determine whether social enterprises contribute to addressing global challenges and if they connect their work to the SDGs. Through literature review, website research, and interviews, the study will test hypotheses about social enterprises' impact on the SDGs and influence of the SDGs on their work.
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Global Eco-Wakening: social entrepreneurs and their contribution towards
making SDGs a reality.
Abstract As it is becoming increasingly clear that the current modes of production and consumption, i.e. “business as usual”, are inapt for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) outlined in the Agenda 2030, social business model is attracting increasing attention of various stakeholders. However, limited contributions have been made to studying the existence of the linkage between the work of social enterprises and the SDGs. Thus, the research at hand focuses on establishing or disclaiming this connection, determining whether and how the private sector in the form of social entrepreneurship contributes to the effort of facing global societal, economic, and environmental problems and whether social enterprises themselves connect their work to the Agenda 2030. Using qualitative research methods, the study aims to analyze the information obtained from a literature review, website research and in-depth interviews and derive conclusions, as well as potential policy recommendations, or further research questions. The paper argues that despite the fact that few social enterprises explicitly connect their work to the SDGs, social entrepreneurship represents an innovative and holistic business model, able to address global challenges. Introduction Nowadays it is becoming increasingly apparent that the multitude of environmental, social, and economic challenges that the world is currently facing arise from the existing modes of production and consumption and have their roots deep in business-as-usual models, aimed at maximization of profits. Thus, calls for a fundamentally different approach to conducting economic activities are being heard more often. Although the search for alternatives is fueled by the urgency, scale, and increasing complexity of the problems, no unified solution has been agreed upon by the participants of the discourse, including civil society, policy makers, academia, international organizations, and representatives of the business sector. However, some valuable insights have emerged in this discussion: most importantly, it is now clear that more and more people are willing to align their economic choices with their values and are searching for ways that would allow them to do so (see, for instance, Cone Communications Ubiquity, 2015; Nielsen 2014; Nielsen 2015; Porter & Kramer 2006). Among the models that have appeared as alternatives to business-as-usual, social entrepreneurship has been one of the most prominent, receiving notable attention from the general public, researchers and policy makers. Private sector is currently recognized as a key partner to the achievement of the universally adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDG funding gap is currently estimated at $2.5 trillion per year for developing countries and it cannot be closed by development aid alone (UNDP, UNCTAD). High hopes of prominent international organisations, such as the United Nations Organisation (UNO or UN), Center for Global Development, Innovations for Poverty Action, Evidence Action, etc. are often directed at social entrepreneurs, who are put forward as key drivers of change. Moreover, some UN agencies have already proclaimed that there is a strong connection between the sustainable development goals introduced by the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, which have been unanimously adopted by the international community to address the main challenges faced by the humanity as a whole, and the work done by social entrepreneurs (SEs) that presumably (explicitly or implicitly) aims to achieve the SDGs. Although the idea of connecting the SDGs and social entrepreneurship is 4 quite new, several initiatives have already emerged within different agencies of the UN. Starting from 2016 the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) set in place the initiative “Entrepreneurs for social change”, a one-year training programme for young social entrepreneurs, focused on the Euro-Mediterranean region. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is organizing the Youth Citizen Entrepreneurship Competition where participants are invited to submit their innovative ideas and projects with a societal impact, which champion and implement one or more of the 17 SDGs. There are also initiatives that are not directly aimed at social entrepreneurs but support small and medium enterprises and youth enterprises that align their economic activities with achieving the SDGs or have a potential to do so, e.g. initiatives by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Youth Envoy. The discourse on the existence of a linkage between social entrepreneurship and achieving the seventeen SDGs goes beyond the United Nations, with research on the potential connection between the two done and presented by others, including, for example, research done by the British Council, Utrecht University, and other entities. Accordingly, our research paper will explore the connection between social entrepreneurship and the SDGs. The central aim of our study will be to answer the following research questions: Does the private sector in the form of social entrepreneurship contribute to the effort of addressing (global) societal problems and how? Do social enterprises connect their work to the Agenda 2030? How and why? After conducting background research, we will empirically test the following hypotheses: H1: Social enterprises are contributing to the achievement of the SDGs by tackling the challenges directly related to the SDGs. H2: Social enterprises connect their work to the Agenda 2030 H3: The formulation of the Agenda 2030 has influenced the work of social enterprises. Amid the central role given to the private sector in the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda and the search for alternative business models, our study on the role of social entrepreneurship is attempting to contribute to cutting edge research in this area. The first part of the paper aims to discern the narrative on the connection between social entrepreneurship and the SDGs by reviewing the literature on social business and social impact evaluation, and by exploring the state of affairs regarding the contribution of the private sector to the achievement of the SDGs. In the second part, based on our findings, we determine our working definition of social entrepreneurs and use a case study approach to empirically test our hypotheses and draw conclusions. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: the following section introduces the theoretical framework and addresses the controversies existing in the social entrepreneurship debate, such as a common definition and social impact measurement. Further on, the research methodology and research design are described. Finally, we present our empirical findings and draw conclusions about the validity of our initial hypotheses.
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