Social Entrepreneurship and Scaling Strategies for Poverty Alleviation

Local relationships matter! The impact of intellectual capital on entrepreneurial bricolage in African social entrepreneurs

“…Heeding this, we set avenues for further theorization on how social entrepreneurs develop and manage knowledge (Audretsch et al, 2020;Oliveira et al, 2020;Paoloni et al, 2020) because we empirically show its spillover effect on an entrepreneurial outcome such as bricolage. Moving from our paper, further studies on knowledge management and IC can develop new explanation on how IC and knowledge can determine other entrepreneurial outcomes such inclusive growth (George, McGahan, & Prabhu, 2012;Shepherd, Parida, & Wincent, 2020b), firm survival (Stenholm & Renko, 2016), innovation (Linna, 2013), social change (Bacq et al, 2015), and poverty reduction (Ciambotti, 2020;Shepherd et al, 2020a).…”

“…This is the case of African countries (George et al, 2016 Commission, 2006). Such developing countries (as well as African countries) are then looking for opportunities of inclusivity of most marginalized individuals (such as in slums and rural areas, see Shepherd et al, 2020a) in their plans to move such economies out of poverty (Ciambotti, 2020;Shepherd et al, 2020b). This study provides new recommendations for government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that need to redirect their efforts toward helping and supporting (social) entrepreneurs in creating relationships with local actors, as rural communities or actors operating in slums such as other local NGOs, or promoting supply-chain and distribution channels at local level (Holt & Littlewood, 2017;Manning et al, 2017).…”

“…Thus, with such relational perspective, bricolage can be enacted helping (social) entrepreneurs in their venturing more effectively toward sustainable development. This is important at the country level but also within communities in slums and rural areas where resource constraints can significantly reduce the powerful effect of social entrepreneurs in contributing to sustainable development (Ciambotti, 2020;George et al, 2016). Heeding this, government and local authorities have the opportunity to reinforcing partnerships also through educational programs which foster knowledge sharing among those actors at very local level.…”

“…Primarily because of this dual mission, social entrepreneurs typically face several challenges, such as attracting skilled human capital (Doherty et al, 2014), financial capital (Linna, 2013) and technologies, raw materials, and machineries (Ciambotti & Pedrini, 2021). These challenges are further amplified when social entrepreneurs operate in resource-constraints contexts, such as developing countries (Ciambotti, 2020;Holt & Littlewood, 2017). To address such resource-constraints, social entrepreneurs typically engage in an entrepreneurial process known as bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005;Desa & Basu, 2013).…”