Developing a Framework for Social Entrepreneurship in Palestine

Thumbnail Image
Date
2018-09-19
Authors
بركات, هدى هاني
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
An-Najah National University
Abstract
The entrepreneurship has grown steadily in the last five years. The wheel of entrepreneurship launched for many people and organizations in Palestine starting from the curriculum in the university, the diffusion of entrepreneurship training programs, incubators and startups, investment in ideas by many companies and organizations (Atala, 2015). In this work we created a framework for social entrepreneurship in Palestine through studying major perspectives that influence social entrepreneurship, such as the level of awareness of the concept of social entrepreneurship, the motivation behind social entrepreneurship, the strategies and business plans these social entrepreneurships apply, the evaluations tools they use and finally the obstacles they face and how they overcome them. Descriptive statistics and an econometric approach were both utilized. The target population was the organization in West Bank that are involved in social entrepreneurship and who were supported or funded by Synergos Palestine, as Synergos is among the very few organizations that widely support entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship in Palestine. A sample of 73 organizations were selected distributed among the sectors that were targeted by social entrepreneurship (education, health, community development, reginal economic development, Social Care, Human Rights and Environmental sector). The research identifies stages of which social entrepreneurship organizations go through, the start is always by identifying a systematic problem that is driven from the existing social systems(motivated to create social change), then defining activities needed by founder or co-founders of the social entrepreneurship, followed by an organized activity by the team of the organization to carry out the entrepreneurship mission, then the socialized activity which is defined as the activity within the stakeholders in each society who strive to solve systematic problem collectivity and finally Systematic change and this is the fundamental change at the level of social system (business strategy and operations). This research displayed a suggested framework for social entrepreneurships in Palestine that allows organizations to become more sustainably and grow in the direction needed and supported by its surroundings. This framework consisted of five main pillars. Firstly, the identification of the social problem the entrepreneur would like to solve. Secondly, the identification of the typology of social entrepreneurship organization as for profit or nonprofit organization. Thirdly, the identification of the social entrepreneurship organization's operations and business strategies such as annual budgets, stakeholders, number of employees and volunteers, organization's sector, business strategies and practices and fundraising and supporting organizations. Fourthly, the determination of the obstacles facing social entrepreneurship organization and identifying solutions. Finally, the determination of the indicators of success within social enterprise such as number of beneficiaries, number of services provided, sustainability of financial support, quality of services and geographical expansions. This study also provided a set of recommendations. The first for social entrepreneurs is to follow suggested framework to help secure sustainability and growth for their organizations. Moreover, good business strategies and indictors of success should be identified; this could be accomplished by creating incubators for social enterprise in all Palestinians cities, creating seeds capital or venture capital or equity capital funds that will help finance small businesses for youth. Also, encouraging banks and microfinancing organizations to loan small and medium entrepreneurship projects with acceptable loaning conditions. The second of the policy makers is to create crowd funding platforms for social enterprises and finally activating role of government is crucial in helping entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship.
Description
Keywords
Citation