Female Social Entrepreneurship. Challenging boundaries and reframing gender and economic structures

Abstract

The confluence of entrepreneurship, gender, sustainability and especially, the social dimension, is intricate and underestimated. Therefore, attending to the call for more research in this field, the main goal of this study is to portray female social entrepreneurs and their political, social, and economic contexts in Germany. Focus is set on describing their perspectives, analysing the gendered profile of German social entrepreneurs as distinctive and contextually influenced; as well as on analysing the social entrepreneurship ecosystem through a gender lens, assessing structural limitations and individual agency. To achieve this, it proposes a descriptive and a cross-sectional qualitative research design. Explicitly a conceptual and theoretical frame was developed based on a social constructionist and post-structuralist epistemological approach. Moreover, a secondary analysis of female social entrepreneurship in Germany was undertaken. Finally, 25 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with social entrepreneurs and experts. Qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistical analysis were applied. Key results include, among others, an integrative frame for the analysis of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem, insights into social entrepreneur’s personal paths, as well as their enterprises purposes and management practices, ideas to promote the sector and discussions around its potential. Additionally, practices of doing gender were described, showing that a diverse spectrum of discourses on gender is being utilized. Through the secondary analysis mainly political and economic policies and the forms and contents of initiatives that support and promote social enterprises were illustrated. Finally, recommendations for the field and future research were suggested. The study shows that this sector entails potential to re-do gender and reframe the economy, challenging norms, and borders towards systemic change.