Resumo

Título do Artigo

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS: EXPLORATORY RESEARCH FROM 4 CASE STUDIES
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Palavras Chave

International Social Entrepreneur
Social Entrepreneurship
Social Enterprise

Área

Empreendedorismo

Tema

Empreendedorismo Social

Autores

Nome
1 - Caio Sousa
Fundacao Getulio Vargas/EBAPE - Rio de Janeiro
2 - Edson Sadao Iizuka
CENTRO UNIVERSITÁRIO DA FUNDAÇÃO EDUCACIONAL INACIANA PE SABÓIA DE MEDEIROS (FEI) - campus SP

Reumo

The social problems that afflict humanity have existed for many years. Extreme poverty, water and air pollution, countless forms of discrimination, and the exclusion of minorities, among other challenges, present themselves to a greater or lesser extent in developing countries and also, in some cases, in rich and developed countries. It is in this context that social enterprise emerge as one of the innovative alternatives in the field of social entrepreneurship, to generate environmental and/or social solutions, while generating profitability (DESA; KOCH, 2014; ZAHRA et al., 2008).
Recent studies reinforce that the international competitive environment in which social enterprise entrepreneurs are inserting themselves has attracted the attention of researchers. This work seeks to contribute to the social enterprise literature by proposing conceptual structure and presenting characteristics about its entrepreneurs. The study also contributes to the approximation of the field of international entrepreneurship with that of social entrepreneurship.
Social entrepreneurs have stood out in their international performance, researchers indicate the need for theoretical articulation in more robust fields to understand how the internationalization of social enterprise occurs (YANG; WU, 2015; ZAHRA et al., 2008). Although much of the internationalization literature deals with large corporations, specifically the role of the private sector, current research tends to select small and medium-sized organizations as targets for new theoretical and empirical contributions.
The qualitative exploratory approach to investigation was adopted in 4 cases studies, through the strategy of analyzing the content of in-depth interviews and secondary data. A systematization of the existing literature was also performed to articulate the data obtained. It was decided to conduct in-depth interviews since the literature on social entrepreneurship treats as something essential to understand the background and the social cause that moves an entrepreneur to build the mission and purpose of a business.
The main results of this research present conceptual proposal that indicates characteristics that differentiate social entrepreneurs who operate in International Social Enterprise, are they: They have a life trajectory and international professional performance with family influence; in general, they relate the meaning of life itself with the cause in which they work; they have a solid educational background in a renowned institution with an appreciation for internationalization; people recognized and awarded for their social innovations and they build international/local alliances.
In conclusion, this study seeks to contribute to the social enterprise literature by proposing conceptual structure and presenting characteristics about its entrepreneurs. It is understood that this new phenomenon is characterized by the inseparability of some concepts studied in entrepreneurs with social missions along with the contributions present in the field of internationalization.
DESA, G.; KOCH, J. L. Scaling Social Impact: Building Sustainable Social Ventures at the Base-of-the-Pyramid. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, v. 5, n. 2, p. 146–174, 2014. YANG, Y.; WU, S. An Exploratory Study to Understand the Internationalization Strategies of Social Enterprises. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, v. 6, n. 1, p. 31–41, 2015. ZAHRA, Shaker A. et al. Globalization of social entrepreneurship opportunities. Strategic entrepreneurship journal, v. 2, n. 2, p. 117-131, 2008.