Social entrepreneurial success factors in Sub-Saharan Africa. Which factors help social enterprises to scale successfully and foster sustainable development?

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Review of Business Studies, grade: 1.0, University of Frankfurt (Main), language: English, abstract: This work will analyze the reality of social entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa, through qualitative interviews in the field. By talking to social entrepreneurs of different countries and sectors in the region, it will possible to give a holistic understanding of what social enterprises need, in order to succeed. Social enterprises still face different internal and external challenges that need to be overcome: From equal access to talent, finance and social networks. To existing policies, which currently are not creating enough favorable incentives to support social enterprises. And an overall stigma and mindset around Sub-Saharan Africa, dominated by stereotypes of poverty, instability and risk. Based on this multidimensional understanding of the obstacles, which hinder social entrepreneurial success in the region, this paper will elaborate concrete recommendations: both in terms of internal and external factors, such as policy and mindset transformation.Social entrepreneurship and its difficulties and success factors in Sub-Saharan Africa are still under-researched. This field especially lacks empirical studies. Literature offers theoretical knowledge about the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship in general and a holistic insight about specific business conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. A desk review of existing literature in this area will form the theoretical-contextual foundation for the qualitative field-research of this paper.The analysis of the qualitative data will be carried out within four different categories in order to allow a comprehensive understanding of social entrepreneurial success factors: Human capital, financial capital, social capital and business environment. Within the discussion, based on the qualitative results, this paper will be able to formulate recommendations as to how social entrepreneurial success factors could be achieved and leveraged. The results of which will be summarized within the conclusion and form the foundation for answering the core research question of this work: which factors help social enterprises to scale successfully and foster sustainable development An outlook of possible future research topics will conclude this paper.