Building Start-Up Ecosystem Through Social Enterprise Business Model: A Study Reference to Women Empowerment by Social Enterprises

Abstract

Social enterprises (SE) generate social value and contribute in developing communities by implementing their ideas and making good use of the resources at hand. Social entrepreneurs want to generate durable social impact and therefore, they need to innovate; without social innovations, they do not have prospects of development. Globally, social enterprises introduced different types of social innovations in order to achieve the objectives of their business model. Their learning model is based on the concept from the practical to the general; they believe in grassroots realities of social enterprise development. Social entrepreneurs are self-motivated individuals who take voluntary initiative for solving particular social issues of the indigenous society. One of the essential pre-requisites for SE is to be successful in fulfilling its objectives, which is financial viability of the organization by bringing in a social change. The process of social change requires generating intellectual, social, human, financial, ethical and environmental capital. The research paper provided an opportunity to study the social enterprises who have integrated their business models that display women empowerment, ethics, good governance principles, and sustainable development practices. Two cases are referred to in the paper that indicates the success of social entrepreneurs because of their integrated business model. The study also echoes an important aspect of the role of social enterprises in empowering women. Persistently, women are considered the most vulnerable section of the community even though they constitute almost half of the population. The path to community development begins by empowering a woman who has been suppressed by her own community and experiences limited access to education, health, society, culture, business, etc. Social enterprises in this process of social value chain creation ensures that women are self-reliant, since she is the most vital source of economic self-sufficiency. Social enterprises encourage women to participate in business activities in any form they would be happy to serve. By providing skills and access to women increases the chances of a sustainable livelihood that in the end would lead to eradication of poverty. Social entrepreneurship is envisaging the fact that other issues of society like gender, equality, class, race, ethnicity, culture, etc., can be mediated through women empowerment.