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. This book analyses social entrepreneurship through a gender lens by portraying German female social entrepreneurs and their political, social and economic contexts. Within a descriptive qualitative research design, a secondary analysis of different dimensions of the social entrepreneurship system and twenty-five in-depth interviews with social entrepreneurs and experts were conducted. The author shows that this sector entails potential to re-do gender and reframe the economy, challenging norms and borders towards systemic change. Attending to the call for more research in this field, the main goal of this study is to portray female social entrepreneurs in Germany. Focus is set on describing their perspectives through an analysis of the gendered profile of German social entrepreneurs as distinctive and contextually influenced as well as on assessing structural limitations and individual agency. To achieve this, the book proposes a descriptive and a cross-sectional qualitative research design. A conceptual and theoretical frame was developed based on a social constructionist and poststructuralist epistemological approach. Moreover, a secondary analysis of female social entrepreneurship in Germany was undertaken. Key results include, among others, the development of 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 are described, which show that a diverse spectrum of discourses on gender is utilized. Through the secondary analysis mainly political and economic policies and the forms and contents of initiatives that support and promote social enterprises are illustrated. Finally, recommendations for the field and future research are suggested.