Align or perish: Social enterprise network orchestration in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Published in: Journal of business venturing 2022-03, Vol.37 (2), p.106187, Article 106187
• Main Authors: Busch, Christian, Barkema, Harry
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Business ecosystem; Comparative case study; Emerging economy; Kenya; Low-income context; Scaling; Social embeddedness; Social entrepreneurship; Social impact; Social networks
• ISSN: 0883-9026; 1873-2003
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2021.106187

Previous research has shown that networks are vital for scaling the impact of social enterprises. However, at present, insight into how and why social enterprises successfully orchestrate networks over time as they scale, particularly in the Sub-Saharan African emerging economy context, is scant. Theoretically sensitized by social network theory, our inductive study of six Kenyan social enterprises analyzed their phase-contingent network orchestration. Our findings show how and why entrepreneurial contextual bridging and circumventing social liability are important for initial scaling, whereas aligned capacity building as well as aligning incentives with political actors become necessary to develop and navigate social business ecosystems. In sum, we contribute a deeper understanding of how and why agentic network actions help social entrepreneurs achieve success as they scale in an emerging economy context. •We investigate how social enterprises in the Sub-Saharan African emerging economy context orchestrate networks.•We identify four phase-contingent mechanisms that can help social ventures scale in this context.•Entrepreneurial contextual bridging and circumventing social liability allow ventures to expand into diverse contexts.•Aligned capacity building and aligning incentives with political actors enable ventures to overcome alignment challenges.•We contribute to a deeper understanding of how and why agentic network actions help social entrepreneurs achieve success.