Entrepreneurial Orientation among Social Enterprises in Uganda

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and social enterprise growth. A sample of 144 was selected from 548 registered social enterprises in Kampala city of Uganda using simple random sampling. The paper uses cross-sectional data. It has established that there is a significant positive correlation between the level of Innovativeness and Social Enterprise Growth, implying that that, as social entrepreneurs invest more in both radical and incremental innovations, they are likely to realise growth in competitiveness. Moreover, the study has found that risk orientation and proactiveness have a significant correlation with social enterprises growth. In other words, when social enterprises prepare good business plans, practice effective business controls while constantly seeking opportunities, they are likely to experience growth. In fact, EO, as a global construct, explains up to 37.3 percent of the variance in social enterprise growth. As such, the social enterprise sector needs to develop EO mechanisms for utilisation in creating and exploring opportunities for growth. Although the social enterprise sector has experienced phenomenal growth, there is need to develop an entrepreneurial capacity-building framework to support growth, sustainability and competitiveness of these enterprises. Indeed, the study recommends encouraging social entrepreneurs to make financial investments in research and development in addition to carrying out market environmental scanning to identify market changes, constant social product and service improvements and new social product development so as to access differentiated markets and realise requisite growth.  On the whole, this paper presents and extends the debate on the relevance of EO and contextual evidence of social enterprises and their nature of entrepreneurial orientation in a developing economy where the level and practice of philanthropy has unique challenges for supporting social entrepreneurship.