Criteria for successful social entrepreneurship in the Primorsky region

Abstract

The article is aimed at studying social entrepreneurship success and identifying the opinions of social entrepreneurs in the Primorsky region (krai) on the criteria for assessing the success of their activities and the reasons for choosing these criteria. The goal and the specific scope of the research required the application of such scientific instrumentation as case studies, interviews, observation and survey of entrepreneurs of social businesses of the Primorsky region in the period 2016-2017. The data used in the research were taken from various scientific journals and articles on management and entrepreneurship. The concept of success as well as the criteria for assessing the success of social entrepreneurship still remains insufficiently studied. The nature of social entrepreneurship is still the subject of scientific discussion, and there has always been contradictions in the definition of this concept. In social entrepreneurship, it is important to have a mixed mission, including both social and economic components. The respondents defined the success of social entrepreneurship as “a social business which is aimed to solve problems in the system of social protection, yield profit and financial stability, and provide the opportunity for its development”, with public utility and shared value being the main criteria to assess the success of social businesses. Preliminary results of the study can contribute to the development of theoretical knowledge for understanding social entrepreneurship nature and the success of its development. The relevance and practical application of this study is that the obtained results can help social entrepreneurs in making decisions on the analysis of their own enterprises’ success in accordance with their strategies, goals and objectives. The further scientific research in this field will require a longitudinal study to trace the dynamics of social enterprises in order to generalize the obtained results.