Purpose This paper aims to understand social entrepreneurship (SE) business model design to create values whilst undertaking public service delivery within the complex environments of local governments in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach Face-to-face semi-structured interview was conducted with 15 purposively selected social entrepreneurs in Gauteng and Western Cape provinces. The interview guide consisted of main themes and follow-up questions. Themes included SEs’ general history, the social business model; challenges faced and how these were overcome; scaling and growth/survival strategies. These enabled the evaluation of SEs in terms of identifying key criteria of affordability, availability, awareness and acceptability, which SEs must achieve to operate successfully in low-income markets. Social enterprise owners/managers within the electricity distribution, water reticulation and waste management services sectors were surveyed. Findings Most respondents focus on building a network of trust with stakeholders, through communication mechanisms that emphasize high-frequency engagements. There is also a strong focus on design-thinking and customer-centric approaches that strengthen value creation. The value creation process used both product value and service value mechanisms and emphasized quality and excellence to provide stakeholder, as well as societal value, within their specific contexts. Practical implications This study builds upon other research that emphasizes SEs’ customer-centric approaches to strengthen value creation and on building a network of trust with multiple stakeholders. It contributes to emphasizing the business paradigm shift towards bringing social values to the business practice. Social implications Social good, but resource providers are demanding more concrete evidence to help them understand their impact (Struthers, 2013). This is because it is intrinsically difficult for many social organizations to document and communicate their impact in more than an anecdotal way. The research has contributed to the understanding of how SEs can provide evidence of value creation. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of how business models are designed to create value within the context of the overwhelming complexity of local government services in South Africa.

This study discusses access to information and communication technology in the context of food security in Soshanguve, a slum area of The City of Tshwane, the administrative Capital of South Africa. City dwellers access food from retail outlets in a country where dispatching food is a lucrative business. Hence, food price increases pose challenges to urban households. South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), other television stations and radio stations broadcast food marketing information through eleven official languages. Digital food marketing through cellular phone networks is on the rise.ICT is hence a potential tool in the fight against food insecurity and hunger, since its use and range of application continue to grow at astonishing rates. ICT tools to enhance food security are highlighted in UNICEF's use of RapidSMS technology in Ethiopia and Malawi in their food distribution programmes supplying high-protein food to undernourished children ownership, among others.Using questions contained in the USAID developed Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), questionnaires were administered to 300 randomly selected households in Soshanguve. Respondents were asked of their experiences of food insecurity (access) with a recall period of four weeks (30 days).About half of households in Soshanguve are food secure, just over 12% are mildly food insecure, about the same proportion are moderately food insecure, while more than a quarter of surveyed households are severely food insecure. Most households in Soshanguve have access to the use of ICT devices, primarily in the form of cellular phone devices. Food secure households can utilise ICT tools in any manner to meet their food security needs. Our study shows that ICT access is positively associated with household food security. Transactional purchases of items on credit using cellular or landline telephony are, in particular, important in enhancing food security.

This study seeks to examine the prosocial motives of solar energy entrepreneurs as they generate energy to combat energy poverty in South Africa. Using a qualitative research method, data, in words of survey participants, were collected from social purpose and profitable solar energy businesses using a semi‐structured interviews technique. These represent the reality of the interviewed Social Entrepreneurs because their societal world deals mainly with socially constructed issues. A pre‐developed “codebook” forms the basis to build categories of social issues and to consequently amalgamate codes into umbrella themes that enable researchers carry out structured and systematic contextual analysis. Motivated by innate feelings of compassion, empathy and extrinsic concerns for the environment, solar entrepreneurs embark on social venturing to collaborate with municipalities to deliver public services, to the group of vulnerable energy poor South Africans gain access to public benefits, like access to clean energy, which are frequently out of reach of township as well as slum dwellers operating mainly in the informal sector. This study contributes to our understanding of how solar energy entrepreneurs operate and adapt to the complexity of public energy service delivery venture in South Africa.