Ph.D. Position in Social Entrepreneurship

Lille Economics and Management (LEM UMR CNRS 9221) and IÉSEG School of Management invite applications for a fully funded Ph.D. Position in Social Entrepreneurship at its Paris Campus.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

An alternative economic model for building a more just and sustainable society exists, and social entrepreneurship is a central driver. A social enterprise is based on three pillars that will be found in varying proportions:

• a social and/or environmental purpose;
• a viable economic project;
• limited profit-making and democratic governance.

The majority of social enterprises are created by teams (Ben-Hafaïedh & Dufays, 2021) and have, more generally, collective governance. While the lasting impact of entrepreneurial teams on conventional businesses has been demonstrated (Ben-Hafaïedh, 2017; Jin, et al., 2017; Klotz, Hmieleski, Bradley, & Busenitz, 2014), this dimension is hardly broached in the social entrepreneurship literature. Moreover, collective governance characteristics add a layer of idiosyncrasy to the governance of these companies.

This project aims at analyzing the antecedents of the performance of a social enterprise by focusing on the governance of the company in question. What are the levers of value creation, economic and social, in a social enterprise?

The project entails a hands-on approach, completing and analysing a database of social businesses distinguished by the National Prize for the Creator of a Social Enterprise (CREENSO; http://www.creenso.fr) managed by Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh at IÉSEG School of Management, and collecting extra data. Qualitative methodologies as well as a qualitative comparative approach (QCA) (Ben-Hafaïedh, 2009; Douglas, Shepherd, & Prentice, 2020; Wagemann, Buche, & Siewert, 2016) are currently considered.

The selected candidate will be working under the supervision of Dr. Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh and will be part of the IÉSEG Center for Organizational Responsibility research team