Conducive Factors for

Development and Promotion of

Social Entrepreneurship in
Sweden

Stefan Chichevaliev 3rd International Scientific

University American Conference on Business
College Skopje and Economics (ISCBE)
13-15.06.2019
Motive

• 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

• An economic sector that can offer solutions

• Social entrepreneurship (SE)

• Recognition of social entrepreneurship

• Social enterprises in Europe

• Factors for development & promotion for SE

• Does Sweden have enabling/conducive ecosystem for

development and promotion of SE?
Factors for Development of Social
Entrepreneurship
• Political
o Political stability
o Political will

• Legal
o Definition
o Regulation

• Institutional
o Institutional voids
o Institutional support

• Financial
o Available sources of funding
o Access to sources of funding
Methodology

• Method
o Qualitative
• document analysis
• semi-structured interviews
• observations

• Sample
o Six social entrepreneurs
o Ten key stakeholders (donors, academia, representatives of support and umbrella
organizations)
o Two observations (NFPOs) - public-private partnership and non-governmental
organization as social enterprises
o Skåne region - Malmö, Helsingborg, and Kristianstad.
o Starting referent point was the University of Malmö
Methodology

• Analysis
o Thematic analysis
o Microsoft excel
• Index - covering central themes & sub-themes
• Themes – main determinants/factors
• Sub-themes – challenges & needs
o Average time of the interviews – 49 minutes

• Limitations
o Matter of generalization

• Conducted in the Skåne region - One of most inventive regions in Sweden and the
world, with an extremely strong start- up scene
o Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth
o European Social Fund
Results - Participants’ Perception

• Political
o Political will – depends on the regional development and agenda

• Legal
o Definition
• “Democratically built enterprises that use business models as a tool to work for a
change in society and reinvest their profits for the same goal”
o Regulation – Not existent/ different views

• Institutional
o Rigid to systemic changes
o Tradition & Mindset
o Bureaucracy

• Financial
o Dependent on public project-based funding
o Problematic allocation of funds
Does Sweden Have Enabling
Ecosystem for Social Entrepreneurship?
• Not sufficiently enabling

• Laissez-faire legal approach

• Weak institutional recognition

• Lack of communication

• Project dependency
Conclusions

• Challenges
o Hindered access to available sources of funding
o Weak legislation
o Undermined by current traditional structures
o Double burdened
o Financial viability
o Achieving quality

• Needs
o Changes in regulation
o Changes in tradition & mindset
o Promote partnerships & collaboration
o Improve access to sources of funding
o Institutional recognition
Future Research

• Research needed on a regional level with a view to present a

more detailed national state-of-the-art

• Internal factors – social entrepreneurs’ motivation, skill-set,

experience, business acumen and others
Thank you for your attention!
Contacts:
Stefan Chichevaliev
E-mail: scicevaliev@gmail.com
stefan@seobservatory.org
Phone: 00 389 78 30 58 68