Thus, stepping aside from the positivist paradigm, this research proposes to use a social constructionist paradigm as an epistemological frame. Social constructionism has a multidisciplinary background and therefore has selected its ideas from work in the humanities and literary criticism, and of French intellectuals like Foucault and Derrida. Postmodernism was its cultural background, but it has its own origins in earlier sociological works and in social psychology. In psychology, the emergence of social constructionism is normally linked with the paper from Gergen in 1973 about 'Social psychology as history', who states that all knowledge is historically and culturally specific so that social life is continually changing. In sociology the main contribution is usually the work by Berger & Luckmann's in 1966 titled 'The Social Construction of Reality' (Burr, 2006). Berger & Luckmann (1991, p. 13) sustain that 'reality is socially constructed, and that sociology of knowledge must analyse the process in which this occurs', so that the social order is not biologically given, it exists only as a product of human activity. In this way, for the authors, society exists as both objective and subjective reality, and it is understood in terms of an ongoing dialectical process composed of the three moments of externalization, objectivation and internalization. Externalisation happens when individuals act on their world, creating some artefact or practice, which after entering society begin to take on a life of their own and become an object of consciousness for people in that society (objectivation) and are experienced as if the nature of the world is pre-given. Lastly, children are born into a world where these ideas already exist so that they internalise them as part of their understanding of the world (Burr, 2006). One crucial case of objectivation is signification, which is the production of signs, which serve as a guide of subjective meanings. Thus, language is the most important sign system of human society (P. Berger & Luckmann, 1991).

Further, the reality of everyday life is intersubjective as it is shared with others. One important process involved in this inter-subjectivity is socialization. Socialization always takes place in the context of a specific social structure, so that the micro-sociological analysis of internalization must always have as its background a macro-sociological understanding of its structure. Through these social processes, the identity of the individual is formed. Once this identity is formed, it is maintained, modified, or even reshaped by social relations and on the other hand, these identities react upon the given social structure, maintaining it, modifying it, or reshaping it. Moreover, a segment of the self is objectified in terms of the socially available typifications, so that different roles appear when many actors have a common typification. By playing roles, the individual participates in a social world. As soon as individuals are typified as role performers, their conduct is vulnerable to enforcement and obedience to the socially defined role standards (P. Berger & Luckmann, 1991). It could be sustained, that one of these roles includes the role as a woman or as a man, which underlines that gender is understood as socially constructed and that social constructionism questions the assumed categories of man and woman and rejects the belief that a male or female body entail some innate and stable qualities, which determine both the body's actions and reactions to them (Ahl, 2002). Studying gender as socially constructed has consequences not only for the issues under focus, the questions asked, and the assumptions taken, but also for the methods used (Ahl & Marlow, 2012). Moreover, under this paradigm, what a researcher looks for and how they look affects what they see; science is therefore also socially constructed (Ahl, 2002). Furthermore, from a social constructionism perspective, entrepreneurship is an 'enacted' phenomenon that emerges through social interactions (Achtenhagen & Welter, 2011).

Within this frame and regarding feminist theory for this dissertation, the feminist post-structuralist approach will be favoured. The origins of poststructuralist feminism can be traced back to post-structural/postmodern philosophy and social theory (Mir, Willmott, & Greenwood, 2015). Resuming on the postmodern thought, which is also an important background of social constructionism (Burr, 2006), it should be underlined that it is a rejection of the idea that there can be an ultimate truth, and that the world can be understood in terms of metanarratives and emphasises instead the co-existence of a multiplicity of situation-dependent ways of life (Beasley, 1999). In this way, the main idea of poststructuralist feminism, based on the structural linguistics of Saussure, the ideas about the impossibility of a universal truth from Derrida, the dominance of oppositional dichotomies in our thinking and deconstruction as a method and the notion of the power of discourses from Foucault, is to question the unitary notions of women and femininity, because social relations are characterized by instabilities and differences. According to poststructuralist feminism, the position of a 'man' or 'women' is constituted by multiple performances in specific spatial-temporal settings (Mir et al., 2015). Women is a term in process, a becoming. Sexuality is therefore culturally constructed within existing power relations (Butler, 1990). It focuses on the processes through which individuals are made into gendered subjects. Through the examination of the ways the social is interiorized by the individual, poststructuralist theory shows how it is that power works not just to shape specific subjects, but to make those ways of being, desirable, such that individuals perceive them as their own. The idea is not to expose the truth of sex and gender, but to question that which is taken as unquestionable truth (Davies & Gannon, 2011).

Thus, postmodern/poststructuralist feminist writings highlight plurality rather than unity (Beasley, 1999). They propose that instead of the existence of one essential truth, there are multiple subjective, relative truths of personal construction, which are shaped by subjective experience, society, culture, and language (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014).

'Its task is not to document differences between those categorized as men and those categorized as women, but to multiply possibilities, to de-massify ways of thinking about 'male' and 'female' – to play with the possibility of subjectivities that are both and neither – to understand power as discursively constructed and spatially and materially located' (Davies & Gannon, 2011, p. 313).

Postmodern feminists emphasise that universalist assumptions could produce a repetition of the processes of oppression feminism wishes to challenge, because when making assumptions from women as a group, the Western 'Man' as the universal standard is replaced with another controlling norm, against which some women might be marginalised (Beasley, 1999). Therefore, it rejects conceptions of women as a homogenous category, stressing the differences both within and between subjects and the diversity of forms of power and discarding universalising and normalising women as a group. Universalism is understood as an analytical procedure that declares similarities and establishes what is 'normal', and therefore marginalises what is seen as dissimilar, thus relying on normalisation, which states dissimilarity as abnormal. Universalising principles are viewed as intimately connected with domination and the subordination of that which is not 'normal'. This dissertation agrees with a poststructuralist feminist stream that 'regard Foucault's call to abandon (sexual) identity as premature in a context in which the feminine is marginalised as a matter of course', in which women are unable to be represented without being related to a masculine norm (Beasley, 1999, p. 95).

'Such feminists remain concerned that if the already marginalised feminine is not voiced as a form of resistance, its disappearance may not spell destabilisation of masculine authority so much as its reiteration. They suggest that unless we explicitly refer to the category, women, the prevailing focus on men remains uninterrupted' (Beasley, 1999, p. 95).

The focus on the women's 'experience' is often related with a recognition that this experiential identity was inseparable from women's struggle within and against patriarchal norms for femininity (Friedman, 1991) and as Ahl (2004, p. 30) states 'There are difficulties and dangers in talking about women as a single group but there are also dangers in not being able to talk of women as a single group'. While gender encompasses both men and women, the focus on women and their businesses is valuable because they are less often included in studies of entrepreneurship (Brush et al., 2018). Thus, this research will focus on the female group of social entrepreneurs and will analyse the gender constructions within this group and their contexts, acknowledging that there are no essential and universal traits specific to women.

Moreover, poststructuralism questions the individualism of humanist approaches, and contrasting with postmodernism it might be understood as the opposite of the emphasis on the individual of global capitalism and neoliberalism. It adopts the task of re-visualizing the past and future relations of the individual to the environment and to each other, as beings that are 'co-implicated' with others and not as individualistic actors that are separate from the world. In this way, an important focus of post-structural theory is on the way individuals become gendered subjects, and as discussed before rejecting theories which state that gender and sexuality are determined whether through social structures, cognition, or biology (Gannon & Davies, 2012). As an ongoing discursive practice, it can be intervened and re-signified, as identity is understood as an effect (neither fully determined nor fully artificial and arbitrary), as produced, opening possibilities of agency (Butler, 1990). This turn into agency, and the possibilities for action, is based on the ability to recognize the social and historical regulated nature of discursive constitution and thus does not assume freedom from it but sustains that it can be questioned and changed (Gannon & Davies, 2012).

Feminist postmodernism/poststructuralism emphasizes specificity of context and time. It recognizes how culture, history, and society influence realities, highlighting the variations of women's lives and identities and asking how they are perceived and shaped, exploring the interactions between gender, sexuality, class, race, and ableism (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014).

In poststructuralist/postmodern feminism there is a strong focus on discursive practices of gender, deconstructing the binary logic of gender (Mir et al., 2015). Thus, by perceiving knowledge as socially constructed, unstable and contextualized, an emphasis is placed on language and discourse (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014). A discourse is a historically, socially, and institutionally specific structure of statements, terms, categories, and beliefs, contained in organizations, institutions, words, and social relationships. They serve as 'truths' and have a powerful legitimating function (Scott, 1988). Accordingly, many feminist writers and researchers have focused on the language used to describe the world and people, to underline how understanding and perceptions are developed, accepted, and reinforced, based on Foucault and Derrida, who related power and language and the idea of deconstruction. Hence, the Foucauldian discourse analysis has become a key method of research in feminist postmodernism. In general, this method allows the analysis of language, images, symbols, and other media representations, aiming at understanding how realities are constructed through these and identifying cultural and social influences on subjective experiences. The main idea is to challenge the questions that are asked about women's experiences. Thus, prevailing theories can be deconstructed, identifying the power dynamics and other factors that have influenced their development. Feminist researchers do not understand discourse analysis as a method per se; instead, it influences the nature and focus of the questions they ask (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014).

Additionally, feminist poststructuralism moves away from the empiricist search for objective truth and explores women's experiences and behaviour in relation to the context they are embedded in; rejecting the use of hegemonic norms that see women as deviant from the norm. As mentioned, it discards objectivity and the belief of an absolute truth, questioning the validity of differences based on cultural, social and class. It deconstructs these socially constructed categories, exploring distinctions in individual experience within these groups. Consequently, it explores the forms in which language creates and reinforces the essentialist views of women. Traditional scientific approaches are regarded as one discourse among many that are available (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014). In this way, post-structuralist theory dismisses positivism, that relies on a method as a guarantor of truth (Davies & Gannon, 2011), understanding the social world as independent of the researcher. In contrast, it proposes that objectivity must be carefully rethought, so that any interpretation is always situated; meaning that an interpretation from a specific location, time, and person, with a specific goal and for a specific audience, is therefore always partial and particular (Gannon & Davies, 2012). Thus, poststructuralism realises the mutual embeddedness in discourse and relations of power of researcher and researched (Davies & Gannon, 2011).

As previously discussed, discourse analysis is one of the main methods used by thie approach, however, there are many other methodological approaches that are applied, since the emphasis is on the process of exploration rather than on following a method (Davies & Gannon, 2011). Poststructuralism's central strategy is close textual analysis, including macro-texts such as 'capitalism' and micro-level texts such as interview transcripts or literary texts. Their strategies are usually multidisciplinary. Important is that the interpretative focus shifts from language as a tool for describing real worlds, towards discourse, as constitutive of those worlds. This makes the historical, cultural, social, and discursive patterns visible through which oppressive or dominant realities are maintained; so that structures and practices of everyday life can be questioned and challenged; understanding the individual as co-implicated and not separate from the social (Gannon & Davies, 2012).

In general, adopting a feminist perspective, positions women as worthy research subjects and dispute embedded ontological assumptions. In entrepreneurship, in addition to developing a more critical use of both quantitative and qualitative data informed by feminist analyses, there should be a focus on longitudinal work (Marlow, 2014) and discourse analysis, because tales about entrepreneurship, constitutive of social reality, become important (Ahl, 2002). There is a need to embrace innovative methods to build explanations using a constructionist approach (Yadav & Unni, 2016). There should not be any aversion against quantification and statistical analysis as this often provides the information for determining the importance of research questions, yet it does not enable a detailed analysis of how a gendered construction of the entrepreneurial discourse is produced and reproduced. Accordingly, a more diverse and differentiated methodological approach is necessary (Ahl & Marlow, 2012), where gender is used as a lens and not merely as a variable and results are analysed through the intersectionality perspective and embedded in their context (Marlow, 2014). The methodology used for this dissertation will be described and discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Critics of feminist postmodern/ poststructuralism reject the affirmation that there is no universal truth, the aim to deconstruct power structures within discourse and the rejection of the conception of women as a homogenous category. Declaring that there is no universal truth has been considered harmful to feminism, because it impedes a sense of community and a common goal from the movement (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014). This relativism is seen as unable of provoking any action to improve the lives of women, which should be a main goal of feminism. However, poststructuralism does allow an analysis of the operations of power, permitting their transformation (Gannon & Davies, 2012). Still, the limits of this approach need to be recognized to avoid prescribing 'minority world ideas in others in a uniformed and potentially damaging way' (Frost & Elichaoff, 2014, p. 52).

Adopting a post-structuralist feminist theory in entrepreneurship research allows understanding gender as a basic organizing principle in society, assuming that through socialization and the subordinated position of women, they have different experiences and interests from men's (Ahl, 2002). It also offers a more coherent epistemological critique of the a-theoretical nature of knowledge regarding female entrepreneurship, which would reveal, analyse, and underline the meaning of entrepreneurship through women's experiences and therefore guarantee that their activities receive greater credibility and legitimacy (Ahl & Marlow, 2012). Using a feminist research approach is not necessarily a way to generate more truthful versions of an area of study; however, choosing any perspective, and especially a feminist one, is a value-based choice, since all science reproduces or challenges a specific social construction of reality. Therefore, the aim is to challenge gender arrangements within social entrepreneurship with an interest in change (Ahl, 2002).

Within female social entrepreneurship it is important to highlight that there is a need to stop exploring if there is an essential relationship between the feminine and the social. Further, research needs to focus on analysing the form and intent of women's socially entrepreneurial activity, regarding incidence, sector, and scale, and showing the multiplicity of women's backgrounds, experiences, and motivations. Thus, the nature of women's contribution and impact in this sector can be underlined and better supported (Marlow, 2014). Applying a feminist perspective will problematize the gender-neutral and gender-blind assumptions related to the 'social entrepreneur', like the hero narrative or the general masculine advantage. Therefore, both the identity of the social entrepreneur and the context in which he/she is embedded need to be analysed from a gender perspective, examining how gender is constructed in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and consider social, cultural, political and economic reforms that might promote gender equality (Clark Muntean & Ozkazanc-Pan, 2016).

Furthermore, a contextualized view on entrepreneurship can enhance the knowledge of when, how, and why entrepreneurship happens. It includes, besides the business, social, spatial, and institutional contexts, also household and family embeddedness. Moreover, it sees entrepreneurship as taking place in intertwined social and geographical contexts, which can change over time and can be perceived as an asset or a liability by entrepreneurs. Finally, in research it must be acknowledged that entrepreneurship happens in various contexts, that research takes place in specific contexts and communities, and that researchers themselves bring their own context to the research. Therefore, researching entrepreneurship includes recognizing the complexity and diversity of the phenomenon and its contexts, and recognizing contributions outside the mainstream debate (Welter, 2011).

The context in which an entrepreneurial activity is embedded simultaneously provides individuals with opportunities and boundaries. Therefore, according to Welter (2011), when analysing the context, the following dimensions should be included:

family. Also, the institutional context plays an important role, as formal institutions are political and economy-related rules which create or restrict opportunity fields for entrepreneurship (e.g., laws and regulations for market entry). Informal institutions, including norms and attitudes of a society, influence opportunity recognition of entrepreneurs as well as opportunity exploitation and access to resources (e.g., the value society gives entrepreneurship or the roles of women in society);

▪ the 'when' perspective draws attention to temporal and historical contexts, by referring to historical influences on the nature and extent of today's entrepreneurship and changes in the contexts over time.

Contextualization can take place at many stages of the research process, from formulating the research problem; selecting a research design, methodology, and site; to data measurement, analysis, and interpretation. One important challenge in contextualizing entrepreneurship is to not take context for granted. Contextualizing theory implies acknowledging situational and temporal boundaries for entrepreneurship to frame research questions and research designs, which can include context descriptions or studying entrepreneurship from a comparative perspective. Research on women's entrepreneurship and on ethnic entrepreneurs offer useful theoretical perspectives by proposing multi-layered embeddedness analysis formats, which recognize the diversity in institutional and socio-spatial contexts (Welter, 2011).

With regards to gender, for Brush et al. (2018) the entrepreneurship ecosystem includes a conducive culture, the availability of financing, the acquisition and development of human capital, new markets for products and services, and a range of institutional and infrastructural supports. Usually, it is assumed that all entrepreneurs have equal access to resources, participation, and support, as well as an equal chance of a successful outcome. However, it has been shown that entrepreneurship ecosystem factors influence men and women differently and there is emerging data that show the effects of women on entrepreneurship ecosystems. Explicitly recognizing gender could enhance theory and elaborate the understanding of entrepreneurship ecosystems generally. Thus, the authors explore how and where gender matters for entrepreneurial ecosystems at three levels: institutional, organizational, and individual.

▪ the institutional level influences the nature and extent of entrepreneurship, its development, and its outcomes. These include regulatory, normative, and cognitive institutions. Research has indicated that some of these institutions have a potential gender impact, including the constitution providing for gender equality in a society; labour market rules; family and tax policies, tax regulations and the overall infrastructure for childcare; and property rights that may allow or prevent female ownership of land, together with the predominant gender ideology and gender stereotypes in a specific society;

Finally, because of the intercultural background of the researcher, it is most important for the idea of situated knowledge to include Latin American feminist theories. For Mendoza (2014) the dialogue between mestizos, euro-south-American, indigenous and black still presents vestiges of a power dialectic between the dominant cultural speaker and the subordinate speaker, which shows that there is still a lot to do for Latin American feminists, specially about the absence of a conceptual structure that includes the coloniality of gender in its linking with race, class and sexuality within societies and the confabulations of the ultra-right of the northern Globe.

Latin American feminism highlights that feminism needs to include not just the bourgeois white female, but also working women, women of colour, indigenous women and all other women characterisations that are not comprised in the heterosexual white female portray. In this way, issues of colonialism and seeing a differential gender construction in terms of race have been an important part of Latin American feminism. Race, gender, class, and sexuality are constitutive of each other and cannot be understood separately (Lugones, 2014). In this way, feminism of difference, that was able to destroy the universalizing bias, monolithic and homogenizing of women from modern occident, allowed the emergence of other popular feminisms, indigenous feminisms, afro-feminisms, lesbian feminism, communitarian feminism, decolonializing feminism and others. Here the critic towards essentialism discussed before in post-structural feminism is also reflected. There is in general, a need to abandon the Eurocentric interpretative frames, and a valuable contribution of Latin American feminism is the creation of an 'amongst-us' through the recognition of the differences, a communal thinking, activating the creative possibilities and including circles of meaning and recognition that allow coalition (Alvarado, 2016).

Regarding female entrepreneurship, promoting entrepreneurship among women in Latin American has been part of a set pf policies which redefine poverty in terms of an absence of individual capabilities and not as a structural and income-related problem. Aiming at strengthening capital and including women in the market, different interventions train and empower women to guarantee the basic living conditions and having flexibility in their working hours to be able to keep the caring activities outside their work. State obligations are rather absent in the provision of care services and reproduction, and the focus contributes to the idea that the problem of gender is only of poor women because they are excluded from the market and their low productivity, thus ignoring the structures that cause poverty in the first place. Feminist economy, therefore, has been fighting to create a welfare state which corrects high levels of inequality and contributes to the socialization of care, evoking European experiences, however criticising the link to an androcentric working model. It does not mention, though, that one of the main reasons the welfare state was possible was because of the relation of centre-periphery, which guaranteed the historic extraction of resources, configured in a relationship of modernity and colonialism. In research, North America and Europe are still the centres where theory is developed which leads to the dominant relation of centre and periphery, where Latin America contributes as a field for the application of the concepts. Moreover, it is necessary to discuss the theoretical implications a care economy would have based on the foundations of the Buen Vivir (an Andean indigenous world view), where anthropocentrism is rejected, and earth is recognized as a subject and object of care. At the same time, the community dimension, including collective autonomy and self-organization, allow considering other care dimensions that have been ignored. The decolonizing perspective contributes to the feminist economy the construction of a field of knowledge which is more porous, more willing to situate itself and discuss other pre-assumptions, opening to the possibility to produce a theory that reflects the epistemological alternatives about the causes and solutions for inequality (Quiroga Díaz, 2014). Therefore, there is a need to question the eurocentred norm and open the theoretical, epistemological, and methodological approaches towards diversity. In this manner, this research wishes to pursue an 'amongst-us', recognizing differences and underlining a communal thinking that allows coalition.

In conclusion, the most important aspects of the epistemological approach of this dissertation are first, that it is framed in social constructionism, meaning that it understands individuals and societies as socially constructed, where subjects have a dialectical relation with social structures and where gender is therefore also, socially constructed. Second, the feminist approach is supported by the feminist post-structuralist theory, where the focus is set on the specific processes whereby individuals are made into gendered subjects, which are influenced not only by the subjective experience, but also by society, culture, language, and context in general. In this way, it underlines a contextualized view on entrepreneurship, and especially in female social entrepreneurship, it emphasises the avoidance of looking for an essential relationship between the female and the social, moreover, focusing on the analysis of the form and intent of female social entrepreneurship, examining how gender is constructed within the social entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Consequently, this research proposes an integrative frame for the analysis of social entrepreneurship, based on Isenberg's Model of an entrepreneurship ecosystem (Isenberg, 2011), the contextualized view of entrepreneurship by Welter (2011), the gender-aware framework for women's entrepreneurship (Brush et al., 2009), the work of Clark Muntean & Ozkazanc-Pan (2016) on feminist perspectives on social entrepreneurship, the research review of women entrepreneurship from Yadav & Unni (2016) and the review of the gendered entrepreneurship ecosystems from Bush et al. (2018) (Figure 7). It includes the idea of ecosystem, a term that comes from the field of ecology and refers to the 'habitat' of which social entrepreneurs are a part (Kickul & Lyons, 2016). It includes three levels of analysis: the individual or micro-level (personality, motivations, self-perception, abilities, values and identity, etc.), the meso level (education, industrial sector, country, media, income, region, social networks, regional services, etc.) and the macro level (welfare system, national policies and strategies, business culture, cultural beliefs and attitudes, social structures, social norms and expectations, technology, social stratification, as well as legislation, family, economic and tax policy, labour market structures, female business owner's involvement, third sector and social economy, etc.). Additionally, it contains the four dimensions that play an important role specifically in the study of entrepreneurship according to Brush et al. (2009): market, money, management, and motherhood, which have been adapted for social entrepreneurship as management, market and social/ecological purpose, resources and household and care (see Figure 8). It is important to note that the different levels and the different dimensions are not separate and independent from each other, as they overlap, relate, and influence each other. Also, the phenomenon of female social entrepreneurship is the consequence of the interrelation of and with these levels and dimensions in a specific historical and geographical context. Such a differentiation of levels is in many cases problematic. However, it is used to decrease the level of complexity of such ecosystem, as well as allowing a more accurate analysis of it. Lastly, this frame, based on feminist objectives as previously described, does not intend to be an analysis frame only for female social entrepreneurship. Rather, the intention is that this frame is applied for the analysis of social entrepreneurship in general, and eventually for general entrepreneurship too. I use this integral frame for the research design and specially the design of the methodological instruments, such as interviews or surveys, as well as for the analysis and interpretation of the collected data.

*Figure 7*: Integrative Frame for the Analysis of the Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (Source: own illustration based on Brush et al., 2009; Brush et al., 2018; Clark Muntean & Ozkazanc-Pan, 2016; Isenberg, 2011; Welter, 2011; Yadav & Unni, 2016)

## **4.2 Purpose and Justification**

One of the main purposes of this research study is to keep filling the gap of studies on social entrepreneurship and gender, as there is a lack of research on women-led social enterprises and gender dimensions of social economy and social enterprises (Humbert, 2012). Most academic studies have used a genderblind analysis of social entrepreneurship, although the field of gender scholarship is relatively firm and despite a call for more gender sensitive studies of social entrepreneurship (Teasdale et al., 2011). Currently, there are only some few reports of social entrepreneurship and gender as listed previously in section 3.4 The current state of research.

Additionally, from female entrepreneurship research there is a call to continue to tell stories about women's business practices, in order to challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions of gender neutrality with regards to typical business behaviour and entrepreneurship (García & Welter, 2013). Also, regarding gender research and specifically, hegemonic masculinity studies, this research wishes to answer to the appeal to pay more attention to the practices of women, incorporating a more holistic understanding of gender hierarchy, recognizing the agency of women as well as the power of dominant groups and the mutual conditioning of gender dynamics and other social dynamics (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2016). The aim is therefore, from the perspective of women's experiences, to offer women explanations and analysis of social phenomena that are wanted and needed and not of issues that are proposed by others (Harding, 1987).

Finally, this research project intends to respond to the claim to use a social constructionist approach, which looks at any individual within a social ecosystem (Ahl & Marlow, 2012) using gender as an analytical category and not as an explanatory variable (Ahl, 2006), addressing the deeply rooted inequality structures that restrain and limit women and social enterprise (Usher Shrair, 2015), as well as those structures that encourage and promote it. In this way, highlighting the potential of social entrepreneurship to obtain feminist change (Ahl et al., 2016), and inquiring consequently the potential of social entrepreneurship, combined with feminist approaches, to transform the entrepreneurship system, thus, transforming the current male-dominated and growth-oriented paradigm into a more gender-equal and inclusive way of tackling social needs (Usher Shrair, 2015). Moreover, underlining that most feminist researchers seek to connect their study to social transformation and social change on behalf of women and other oppressed groups (Gannon & Davies, 2012), aiming at producing knowledge that is applicable to the world that women live in (DeVault & Gross, 2012).

## **4.3 Research Questions**

Based on the previously mentioned purpose and justification of this study, the main goal of this research is to portray female social entrepreneurs and their political, social, and economic contexts in Germany (How can female social entrepreneurs in Germany be portrayed?); mainly by answering these secondary questions:

Following, to answer the main and secondary research questions, I will describe the research design. A research design is used to ensure that the data obtained enables the researcher to answer the research question as precisely as possible, therefore it involves specifying the type of data needed to answer it (Vaus, 2001).

## **4.4 Research Design**

The research design includes the processes that will be used and the strategies for identifying and accessing settings of informants, the approximate number of settings or people planned to be studied, the data collection, the data analysis procedures, and the significance of the research (Taylor, Bogdan, & DeVault, 2015).

Feminists have created new epistemologies by incorporating women's lived experiences, emotions, and feelings into the knowledge-building process (Gannon & Davies, 2012) and this research design aims at incorporating the lived experiences of women in social entrepreneurship. Moreover, an optimal feminist analysis affirms that class, race, culture and gender assumptions, beliefs and behaviours of the researcher must be placed within the frame of the interpretation, analysis, and communication of results so that 'the researcher appears not as an invisible, anonymous voice of authority, but as a real, historical individual with concrete, specific desires, and interests' (Harding, 1987, p. 9).

This study proposes a descriptive and a cross-sectional qualitative research design (Rubin & Babbie, 2014), defining and describing social phenomena since it focuses on portraying what is relevant regarding a group and a situation. Descriptive research differentiates from exploratory research, however, in that some knowledge about the topic is available and therefore the outcome can be more accurate and precise, as it is the case in this study (Cargan, 2007). Competent descriptions can challenge accepted assumptions about the way things are and can provoke action, stimulating causal questioning. In a crosssectional design, data is collected in one point of time, contrary to for example longitudinal design were data is collected in different periods of time (Vaus, 2001). The qualitative research design remains flexible both before and throughout the actual research, while the specific details develop during the process. Therefore, most qualitative researchers attempt to enter the field without clear hypothesis and usually only with general questions. The phenomena should be explored as they emerge during the research process (Taylor et al., 2015).

Regarding gender, research approaches should be analysed to deliberate whether they are gendered by nature. In entrepreneurship, there is a vast use of the positivist approach (e.g., standardized data collection and statistical multivariate techniques for analysis), and research on the individual entrepreneur and on enterprises usually uses instruments developed and tested on men. Therefore, the use of mixed methods is recommended, which allows researchers to portray women's entrepreneurship more broadly, with the analysis of how the process of entrepreneurship might be influenced by the social and institutional context. This type of research design can be attained including qualitative dimensions, a constructivist paradigm, and any quantitative components from positivism. With a constructionist paradigm, entrepreneurship is understood as a socially constructed phenomenon, underlining the different dimensions in which entrepreneurship is embedded. Moreover, as discussed before, often research approaches tend to overlook institutional aspects of entrepreneurship (Welter, 2011). Consequently, in women's entrepreneurship the use of mixed methods would be advantageous for understanding both dimensions (Brush et al., 2009), as the use of qualitative or combined methods allow capturing the richness and diversity of the contexts (Welter, 2011). A feminist approach is situated and carried out in a specific historical context, and just as knowledge, it is socially structured (DeVault & Gross, 2012). Moreover, in general, all feminist approaches serve as a guide on how the research methods are practiced (Hesse-Biber, 2012).

As previously discussed, one of the main research methods used by feminist research is discourse analysis. Nevertheless, there are many other methodological approaches that can be used, as the focus is set on the process of exploration rather than on a method (Davies & Gannon, 2011). Quantification and statistical analysis can be used to obtain information needed to determine the importance of research questions. However, it does not allow a thorough analysis of the production and reproduction of a gendered construction of the entrepreneurial discourse. Therefore, more methodological diversity is necessary (Ahl & Marlow, 2012), using gender as a lens and analysing results through a contextual and intersectional approach (Marlow, 2014). Also, according to Connell & Messerschmidt (2016) existing hegemonic masculinities can be analysed at three levels. First, the local level which is constructed in face-to-face interaction of families, organizations, and immediate communities, as typically found in ethnographic and life-history research. Second, the regional level, constructed at the level of the culture or the nation-state, as found for example in discursive, political, and demographic research. Finally, a global or transnational level, like in world politics and transnational business and media, studied in the emerging research on masculinities and globalization.

Therefore, based on the epistemological approach proposed for this research (see Figure 7), the author suggests the use of the integrative frame for the analysis of social entrepreneurship. It includes the three levels of analysis, the individual, the meso and macro level, as well as the four dimensions that play an important role specifically in entrepreneurship according to Brush et al. (2009), adapted into market, management – social/ecological purpose, household and care and resources. These four dimensions will be the main categories used for the construction of the semi-structured guide for the interview. The purpose of using this frame is to understand the complexity and amplitude of the studied phenomenon. However, providing a detailed analysis of every aspect within this frame would exceed the limits of this research, thus the focus will be set on some specific dimensions that emerge from the collected data.

## **4.5 Study Population, Sample and Selection Procedures**

The study population includes all current female social entrepreneurs, experts, and academics on the field in Germany during the years 2018 - 2019. From this study population, the sample will be selected through a purposive sampling process, trying to obtain a representative portrayal of the phenomenon to be studied (Rubin & Babbie, 2014). This type of sampling supports the selection of respondents who should be able to provide information about issues related to the goals of the study (García & Welter, 2013) and usually, as qualitative research is concerned with a deep understanding of the subject, it involves using small samples, aiming at analysing the 'meanings' individuals attribute to their situation and not automatically for generalization or representativeness. Purposive sampling is based on the research question, the resources available and the context (Hesse-Biber, 2010), and aims at securing a range of individuals that represent all groups that are meaningful for the phenomenon (Della Porta, 2014). From the total study population, the sample will try to concentrate on different geographical regions of Germany, industries or types of social entrepreneurships, various age groups and social contexts. Intended is to make also use of snowball sampling to reach other respondents with the recommendation of the participants (Rubin & Babbie, 2014) and if relevant also of theoretical sampling, where researchers select additional cases according to the potential for developing new insights or expanding and refining those already gained (Taylor et al., 2015).

The definitions of social enterprise are culturally, historically, socially, and politically variable, and have been influenced by different policy and practitioner discourses over time (Teasdale et al., 2011). In this way, first, the sampling is based on the definition of social entrepreneurship proposed for this study, which defines social entrepreneurship as 'an undertaking, embedded in a social, cultural, economic and political context, where individual or individuals discover and evaluate opportunities or their own visions and ideas and bring them into reality by providing goods and services applying entrepreneurial and innovative processes based on collective and participatory decisionmaking, with the main purpose to generate social value and well-being and resolve social and ecological problems through the creation of systemic change. This can be realized through a wide spectrum of organizational forms'.

This definition includes two major dimensions important to specify. First, social entrepreneurship should address the legitimate politically defined social problems and operationalize them as goals and enterprise purposes, involving, mobilising, and engaging beneficiaries and all stakeholders. These purposes and specific goals will mainly include:

Second, the range of organizational forms and legal structures will concentrate on the hybrid forms between the purely commercial for-profits and the purely philanthropic non-profits, like non-profit social entrepreneurships, non-profit with a for-profit subsidiary, explicit social enterprises, etc. as proposed in Table 2.

Moreover, as mentioned, samples will be selected from different types of social entrepreneurships, including those from the care, health, and social sector and on industries like technology and environmental protection. Important to mention is the social constructed understanding of gender, which will influence the sampling process as it will include individuals who identify themselves as females; and will use gender as an analytical category and not as a variable. Thus, this dissertation refers to 'female' social entrepreneurship instead of 'women' social entrepreneurs, to underline the fact that it includes the previously understanding of gender as socially constructed, and not to the differentiation of the 'biological' sex between men and women.

Additionally, the sampling process will make use of data collected through a secondary analysis about the female social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Germany. This review will mainly be made using online sources, available literature and entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship networks, reports, and data bases. Here, many organizations, associations, enterprises, and initiatives regarding social entrepreneurship and social innovation were searched for and listed. From many of these sources, female social entrepreneurs, who for example received a prize, or participated in a social impact lab, or others, where identified and a list of approximately 346 female social entrepreneurs was made. From this list, 83 of them were invited to participate in an interview, of which 17 accepted the invitation. The sample encompasses female social entrepreneurs from different industrial sectors, as well as different age groups and cities in Germany.

The proposed research design includes a small control group sample, which comprises male social entrepreneurs, as the focus of the research is on gender. The sampling process was the same as the sampling process for the female social entrepreneurs: the same sources were used to find male social entrepreneurs and the same invitation was send to them. 30 invitations were sent, from which five agreed to give the interview. The interviews were executed using the same interview guideline.

Additionally, seven experts on the field were also invited for an interview, from which three were willing to be interviewed. A Junior Professor of Female and Women's Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Education, Academic Entrepreneurship and other subjects of a German University; a co-founder and leader of the community management and communication of a franchise organization promoting social entrepreneurship through innovation labs, business incubators and event spaces in Germany; and a co-founder of a digital hub supporting people and organizations that are making an impact, through a platform that provides a job searching engine, workshops and courses, funding opportunities, networking, best practices and others.

Following, tables (Table 4, Table 5, Table 6 and Table 7) with the description of the interviewed female social entrepreneurs and enterprises, including founder(s), age group, legal form, year of funding, main activity, target group, the general social purpose they are pursuing according to the definition of this research, and the type of financing and support programmes they use(d). Afterwards, the same description is presented for the control group of five male social entrepreneurs (Table 8) and experts (Table 9).

*Table 4*: Description of Interviewed Sample of Female Social Entrepreneurs in Germany (1) (Source: own elaboration)

*Table 5*: Description of Interviewed Sample of Female Social Entrepreneurs in Germany (2) (Source: own elaboration)

*Table 6*: Description of Interviewed Sample of Female Social Entrepreneurs in Germany (3) (Source: own elaboration)

*Table 7*: Description of Interviewed Sample of Female Social Entrepreneurs in Germany (4) (Source: own elaboration)

*Table 8*: Description of Interviewed Sample of Male Social Entrepreneurs in Germany (Source: own elaboration)

*Table 9*: Description of Interviewed Sample of Experts on Social Entrepreneurship (Source: own elaboration)

## **4.6 Data Collection and Processing**

The data collection includes qualitative and quantitative methods, therefore a mixed-methods approach. Qualitative methods refer to the characteristics, concepts, definitions, descriptions, metaphors, and symbols of things and events and therefore the main methods used are observation, focus groups, and interviewing; and are usually used when the motive for the research is explanatory, evaluative, or descriptive. On the other hand, quantitative methods are structured means like for example frequencies and statistical projections (Cargan, 2007). The research questions will determine the research method (Hesse-Biber, 2010). Explicitly this research concentrates on the following data collecting and processing methods:

referred to as secondary analysis since the material was not originally produced for the current researcher (Cargan, 2007);

▪ in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted to female social entrepreneurs, and experts; inquiring professional opinions and empirical data framed by the research questions and the proposed integrative frame for social entrepreneurship.

The analysis of the data uses when possible a descriptive statistical analysis for the data collected through the secondary analysis and a qualitative content analysis for the data collected through the interviews.

The process of the data collection started with the writing of the conceptual and theoretical framework, concentrating on the definition of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, including gender issues on both sectors and concepts, highlighting the challenges for research and the potentials of the field. Additionally, the epistemological framework provides a social constructionist and feminist post-structuralist basis for the research design and methodology, as well as with the proposition of using an integrative frame for social entrepreneurship research. The second stage of the data collection includes the secondary analysis of the female social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Germany. Here, data was collected about frequency and number of female social entrepreneurships, female entrepreneurship, national policies, social stratification, media, and regional support services for social entrepreneurship. A list was created with all organizations, enterprises, foundations, associations, universities, governmental initiatives, and others, involved in social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship and gender, social innovation, and sustainable entrepreneurship. Some of these organizations were used as sources to identify the sample for the interviews for this research. Therefore, two lists were created: one including supporting initiatives (180) in Germany, and a second list including a broad sample of female social entrepreneurships in Germany (346), selected according to the definition mentioned before.

Thus, the third stage of the data collection is carrying out the interviews, which were recorded with the consent of the interviewed and transcribed verbatim, a coherent text, simple to understand, representing the original wording and grammatical structure (Mayring, 2014). While the intention was to conduct every interview face to face, some had to be conducted via telephone or over online videoconferencing (Hesse-Biber, 2010). The internet and social media offer new possibilities and challenges for interviewing. Videoconferencing is also as an alternative to face-to-face interviewing, allowing the researcher to extend the geographical range of the project (DeVault & Gross, 2012).

The aim of an in-depth interview is to understand the 'lived experiences' of the individual, the way an individual 'subjectively' understands a situation (Hesse-Biber, 2010). In this way, it is essential that testimony be elicited as unobtrusive, non-directive as possible. This type of interview is useful when the goal is to analyse the meaning individuals attribute to the world and to their own participation in it, the construction of identity, and the development of emotions. They allow the researcher to detect human agency, permitting a view into daily life. The open and flexible nature of the qualitative interview allows the generation of new hypotheses and the clarification of others (Della Porta, 2014).

This type of interview is issue-oriented, so that it can explore a specific issue or on a specific area of an individual's life. When there is a specific agenda that needs to be explored, as in the case of this research, an interview guide is required. This guide was constructed, after reviewing the literature and relevant studies, by first focusing on broader areas of analysis and then creating a series of interview questions. After defining the broad topics for the interview, the researcher organized the interview questions needed to obtain the information related to each of these areas. In-depth interviews usually start with a question posed by the researcher, followed by secondary questions seeking clarification or amplification on the answers, but most importantly listening to the respondent's answers, so that most of the conversation is coming from the respondent (Hesse-Biber, 2010). The questions can be adapted to the specific characteristics of the respondent, and consecutive interviews can take into account the results of the previous ones (Della Porta, 2014). Especially in semi-structured interviews it is central to ask narrative-generating questions and to deepen the descriptions of the interviewees through secondary questions (Nohl, 2017).

The interview guide was constructed based on the research questions, as well as considering the integrative framework which resulted from the theoretical and conceptual framework. In this way, the interview guide encompassed four main categories. First, the personal path towards social entrepreneurship, including education, work experience, personal motivations, caring responsibilities, and others. Second, the social enterprise, comprising the social goal of the enterprise, the conceptualization of social entrepreneurship, impact, management practices, working routines, financing, and others. Third, discussing gender in social entrepreneurship, which included the role of gender in their paths and the way gender is being 'done' within this ecosystem. Fourth, concerning the future and the context of social entrepreneurship, arguing about ways in which more individuals can engage in social entrepreneurship, what aspects are working and are efficient and what aspects are needed, or need to de adapted or improved, as well as the potential and challenges of social entrepreneurship as a catalyst for social change, more equality, innovation, and inclusion. For each category, one open question was asked, so that secondary questions were asked if detailed description, argumentation, or evaluation was needed (Nohl, 2017).

The collected data was afterwards analysed and interpreted through qualitative content analysis. According to Mayring (2014) this is a data analysis technique within a rule guided research process, which is based on common research standards, like pursuing a concrete research question, linking this question to theory, defining the research design, as well as the sample and sample strategy, pilot testing the methods of data collection and analysis, presenting results in a descriptive sense, answering the research question, and finally, including a discussion about the quality criteria. In this research study, all previously mentioned research standards were incorporated. Content-analytical procedures follow a systematic process (Figure 8), orienting towards rules of text analysis, which are defined in advance and include specific steps of analysis and their order. In this way, content analysis can be defined as an empirical method for systematic and intersubjectively comprehensible description of the content and formal characteristics of texts (Früh, 2017).

In principle, the procedure consists of two steps. In a first step, categories developed inductively on the material or postulated theoretically-deductively in advance are assigned to individual text passages. Although this process is accompanied by precise rules of content analysis, it remains a qualitative-interpretive act. In a second step, it is analysed whether certain categories can be assigned to multiple text passages. For this reason, the term 'qualitatively oriented category-based text analysis' would probably be the better term (Mayring & Fenzl, 2014). The category system constitutes the central instrument of analysis and contributes to the intersubjectivity of the procedure, so that others can reconstruct or repeat the analysis, the findings can be compared, and the reliability of the analysis can be evaluated. It uses theoretical arguments, so that in all procedural decisions reference is made to the latest research on the subject. Categories will be assigned to segments of text, and this segmentation must be defined in advance, so that a second coder can come to similar results. Category frequencies are also determined and statistically analysed. The categories and the segmentation were previously defined by the author while constructing the interview guide and the research questions. For the analysis, specific techniques of qualitative content analysis by Mayring (2014) can be used, which include:

Regarding the type of categorization, the mix of deductive and inductive category building happens often, especially in descriptive research designs. The general sequence of the mixed form begins with the researcher with relatively few categories, based on the interview guide. These categories function as a type of search grid, so that the material is searched for the occurrence of the corresponding content and is roughly categorized. In a second step subcategories are formed inductively, using only the material assigned to the main category (Kuckartz, 2016). Categories are never 'invented' by the researcher or 'set up' but always derived (Früh, 2017). In this way, during the first step researchers can familiarize themselves with each case and allow patterns to emerge before identifying cross-case patterns. In the second step, axial coding, data are put back together in new ways by making connections between concepts. Thus, categories are obtained which subsume two or more concepts. Finally, in the last step, selective coding, a core category is selected as the central focus in which other categories can be included (García & Welter, 2013). Operational definitions of the categories are needed to limit the scope for interpretation and to disclose the assignment of concrete text passages to categories. Context information and language competence of the researcher are therefore not suppressed, but controlled as far as possible (Früh, 2017).

*Figure 8*: Flowchart of a Content Structured Analysis (Kuckartz, 2016, p. 100)

Computer programmes for qualitative content analysis can support the researcher editing and organizing the material for the different procedures of analysis, allowing the researcher to gather all material coded with a specific category, selecting quotations, and ordering the categories hierarchically, divided into subcategories, combined into general categories, etc. Additionally, it provides flexibility to alter the categories and revise and refine the process of analysis, as well as attaching the rules of analysis, comments, and explanations of categories, so they are available and revisable at any moment within the process of analysis (Mayring, 2014). In this research, data is organized and coded with the help of a computer-aided qualitative data analysis package (MAXQDA).

## **4.7 Quality Assurance**

To guarantee the quality of the collection and analysis of data this research follows specific steps. As there are advantages and disadvantages concerning all social science methods, this study relied on more than one means of data collection, interviews, and secondary analysis. As previously discussed, a mixed methods approach is recommended to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the studied subject. It is important to note that the use of qualitative methods like the in-depth-interview has no aim of representativeness, but of richness of data.

First, the sample size adequacy is evaluated through a peer review and consensual validation and the sampling procedure are accordingly described and explained (Hesse-Biber, 2010).

Participants will be interviewed face-to-face, through online video conference or by telephone, due to the highly mobility of the sample, web-based methods were also appropriate (DeVault & Gross, 2012). The quality of the collected data and the analysis of this data was also ensured with an operationalization of the concepts with theoretical backgrounds. The interview guide was constructed based on the integrative frame for social entrepreneurship research, rooted on the theoretical and conceptual framework of this research. This frame was validated though expert's judgements and a pilot interview, which is an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the research guide, as well as receiving feedback (Hesse-Biber, 2010). Additionally, with closed and open questions, all respondents are asked the same basic questions/thematic, so that the collected information can be compared and analysed. In an interview the order of the questions and the questions themselves can be modified to solicit more adequate answers from each respondent, which brings a good response rate and rapport with the interviewer and there is less likelihood of misinterpretation since there is no forced answer and the interviewer can clarify the meanings of the questions (Cargan, 2007). To obtain authentic data and create a confident frame during the interview it is important to establish rapport with the respondents, which can be achieved by accommodating to informants' routines and ways of doing things, establishing commonalities, and others (Taylor et al., 2015).

In feminist research specifically, reflexivity is highly valued to maintain the quality of the research process. Through reflexivity, a researcher recognizes, examines, and understands how his or her own social background and assumptions can intervene in the research process. During an in-depth interview meaning is co-created, and the main task of the researcher is to listen carefully, discerningly, and intently to the answers of the researched; as well as keeping reflexivity as a mindful practice of his or her personal positionality and that of the respondent (Hesse-Biber, 2010). It is important therefore to recognize that recounted experience is always emergent in the moment; that listening and telling shapes the interpretation, and both are shaped by discursive histories, the perspectives, and values of their communities, by identities and lines of power, cultural structures of similarity, difference, and significance and by the formats available to them. This also influences the questions researchers ask or not, the ease or difficulty of recruiting informants, the types of rapport, and the lenses through which researchers produce and analyse interview data. To create knowledge that is for rather than about the studied people, active listening, a fully engaged practice that involves taking in information and actively processing it, is needed (DeVault & Gross, 2012). To improve the objectivity of the study the researcher must acknowledge the own values, attitudes, and biases in their approaches to specific research questions and reflect throughout the research process (Gannon & Davies, 2012).

It is important to recognize the existing differences between women and assure that when describing women, the researcher is not referring to only some women (e.g., European, able-bodied, middle-class women). The research process is considered as an integral aspect of the construction of knowledge about society if the social contexts of individual's lives are understood as historically situated and created through people's behaviour (DeVault & Gross, 2012). To assure quality in feminist research, the questions that are asked are very important, which should aim at understanding women's lives and those of other oppressed groups, promoting social justice and social change, and being mindful of the researcher-researched relationship and the power and authority embedded in the researcher's role (Hesse-Biber, 2010). For the analysis and interpretation of the interview data, it is essential to note that although the idea that entrepreneurship is gendered is often accepted by researchers in the field, it is rarely a principle that women entrepreneurs themselves draw upon to understand their situation (Brush et al., 2009).

The analysis of the data, for those questions that can be quantified, was carried out with descriptive frequency analysis. Moreover, the qualitative data was analysed through qualitative content analysis, with the category system as the central instrument. Here the quality of the analysis was guaranteed by using a valid analytical tool and following the specific steps included in it (Mayring, 2014). Each category must be defined, described, and explained how the coding should be executed. Additionally, to sustain the quality of the analysis, peer debriefings, judgement of experts, and triangulation of data/the use of mixed methods was attempted when possible (Kuckartz, 2016). Moreover, the qualitative content analysis was accompanied with the mention of the frequencies of each category, which has the intention to underline and complement the qualitative interpretation, but by no means to fulfil a quantitative argumentation.

Additionally, other available methods for the analysis of the data were also considered, however, the most appropriate, in this case, the qualitative data analysis, was selected. For example, grounded theory was discarded as it explicitly aims at the generation of theory and thus sets itself apart from purely descriptive, explorative approaches of qualitative social research. Here, the integration of theory formation into the process of data acquisition and analysis is crucial (Strübing, 2014). Generating theory, was not part of the research aims of this study. Discourse analysis, on the other hand, was also discarded, as it aims to explore contemporary phenomena in their historical form, so that they are historical longitudinal studies (Traue, Pfahl, & Schürmann, 2014), which is not the case of this study.

In the analysis, the generalization claim that can be made is group-related, or from a professional group (Vaus, 2001). To guard the validity of the data, a control group should also be interviewed, including for example entrepreneurships and NGOs that are not considered social entrepreneurships and male social entrepreneurships (Gannon & Davies, 2012). For this study, a control group of male social entrepreneurs was interviewed, as the focus of this research is set on gender in social entrepreneurship.

Regarding ethical aspects, the respondent's right to informed consent, privacy, and confidentiality was protected (Cargan, 2007). Before conducting interviews, it was required to obtain an informed and written consent from participants after explaining the nature of the research, and after, conduct the interview so that it is sensitive to participants' concerns and feelings, protecting the identity of the respondents if necessary, by using pseudonyms and changing some details when representing them in reports, guaranteeing anonymity. Respondents should feel free to ask questions and not to answer those they may not feel comfortable with. Ethics should also play a role in the questions asked and in the interpretation of the data (Della Porta, 2014; DeVault & Gross, 2012; Hesse-Biber, 2010).

## **4.8 Study Limitations**

This research had a limited time schedule and limited resources available. Therefore, the sample chosen for this study represents a small quantitative portion of the whole population. However, I was able to acquire samples from different geographical regions and industry sectors, as well as age groups and nationalities. Moreover, interviewing requires skilled interviewers, is time consuming and contains difficulties in organizing and quantifying the data. Also, observations, focus groups, case studies, ethnographic studies, hermeneutics, action research and other, would also be adequate research methods for the descriptive design that this research proposes (Cargan, 2007). Social science hermeneutics aims to reconstruct the social significance of social actions and interactions in the form of typologies. It is about the reconstruction of individual and social constructions of meaning. This fits optimally with the descriptive aims of this study. However, a key quality feature of sequence analysis is that it works best in a group, as having sequence analysis as a central method, it is a time-consuming and personnel-intensive process (Kurt & Herbrik, 2014). These requirements were not available and therefore, the qualitative data analysis was better suited for the research goals of this study.

With regards to online methods, these could lead for example to an overreliance on Internet contacts. Therefore, I acknowledge the advantages and risks of online and more direct recruitment procedures. Also, the 'digital divide', that is the social disparities in people's access to and ability to benefit from Internet and computer technologies, should be considered, assessing whether this may exclude some potential participants. Another risk is that online interviewing can decrease the kind of 'engagement' of the participants and researchers, because online exchanges can lack the contextual and linguistic signals of face-to-face conversations (DeVault & Gross, 2012) such as gestures and eye contact, and might make it more difficult for the interviewer to establish rapport with the respondent (Hesse-Biber, 2010), making the building of trust with the interviewees more difficult and distraction easier (Della Porta, 2014). However, the sample includes individuals from different age groups and social sectors, and the sampling process comprised also the snowballing sampling, relying on contacts of the interviewed. In general, social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship currently rely on and use actively online resources and instruments, which reduces the risks of excluding potential participants as well as the difficulty to establish rapport.

Furthermore, relying on self-reporting is complicated as respondents may embellish their stories because individuals need to compose, make sense of and communicate meaning (García & Welter, 2013). To that matter, usually people are not able to understand optimally their own actions and there is evidence that people do not report accurately the frequency of events, and how much change they have experienced. Also, memory is selective, so that individuals when thinking about their past tend to remember options they chose as being better than ones they rejected, and remember information relating to themselves better than information relating to others. In this way, usually people do not know why they have acted as they did, why events turned out as they did, or what factors played a key role, they think they know more than we really do, and believe that they understand their own actions, motives, and feelings, and the factors that influence them, much better than they actually do. Therefore, because human self-perception is so flawed, the field of entrepreneurship should not be built solely on their self-reporting. This data should be strengthened with other data from other dimensions and levels (Baron, 2012). Moreover, it has been taken into account that the participants in a study have a critical agency which they can and often do exercise in making decisions about granting access to their information (Bhattacharya, 2009). This limitation was considered as additional data from a secondary analysis was used. Nonetheless, the research design and goal intend to describe and precisely understand the lived experiences of female social entrepreneurs, underlining the qualitative focus of the study.

Moreover, I acknowledge my institutional position as a doctoral candidate in a German academic institution, in the sociology and gender studies department, with the multidisciplinary background of psychology and social work, as well as an intercultural or transnational<sup>8</sup> background as a Peruvian and German. In accordance with Mohanty as cited in Dua & Trotz (2002, p. 74) I acknowledge that there are other economic, political, and social contexts in which entrepreneurship take place, and that this privileged position does not allow me to speak for or represent women who have their own contextualized entrepreneurship situations.

Important criticism from Marlow & Martinez Dy (2018) underlines some dangerous practices in research around entrepreneurship and gender. Current debate around gendered prescriptions for women in entrepreneurship, and their 'outsider status' as transgressing the masculine norm, have been essential to exploring the harmful influence of gendered attributions, discrimination and related stereotypes on women's entrepreneurial propensity and competencies; providing visibility and voice, correcting the balance of the research in entrepreneurship that has long been 'for men, by men, about men' (Holmquist & Sundin, 1989, p. 1 as cited by Marlow & Martinez Dy, 2018, p. 1). However, the authors consider how to move forward from this position, suggesting that it is time to widen the focus beyond women as a homogenised category, with assumptions of heterosexuality, as representative of the gendered subject. They underline that the notion that only women have a gender must be challenged to recognise how gender is performed as a diverse multiplicity and so progress

8 Transnationalism refers to the practices of migrants who live their lives across multiple nation-states if not at least in two nation-states (Bhattacharya, 2009).

and challenge the gender dichotomy. In this way, they criticise also that creating a female entrepreneurship niche creates a reified, fictive construct with empirical examples removed from their contexts, the under-explored LGBTQ\* entrepreneurs and of different demographic and social backgrounds and finally, a lack of intersectional analysis. Henceforth, the authors propose that gender should be positioned into mainstream entrepreneurship debate, moving towards studying gender as a pathway to resource accumulation and exchange mechanism, analysing how gender positions, benefits and disadvantages all social sectors and all entrepreneurial activities.

This study locates more in the previous line of research, the exploration of the influence of gendered ascriptions in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Germany, making studies 'for women, by women, about women'. However, this criticism was reflected about and the analysis of the results considered how gender positions, benefits, and disadvantages the social entrepreneurs interviewed for this study. Also, questioning assumptions of the normativity of the white heterosexual woman entrepreneur in the Global North, aiming at analysing her gendered profile as distinctive and contextually influenced (Marlow & Martinez Dy, 2018).

## 5 Results and Discussion

The following discussion of results is organized according to the four main categories of the interview guide, as well as the 'Integral Frame for Social Entrepreneurship' developed in this research. Theory, statistics, and results from the secondary analysis are used to support and explain any interpretation, evaluation, and qualitative analysis of the collected data. Also, the descriptions of the different categories and sub-categories that resulted from the content analysis are exemplified with some direct quotations from the interviews9.

In this way, I first present in this chapter the description of the collected data through the interviews, organized by the four main categories of the interview guide: personal path towards social entrepreneurship, the social enterprise, doing gender in social entrepreneurship and future of social entrepreneurship. Following, I present the data collected through the secondary analysis, describing some relevant dimensions of the ecosystem of social entrepreneurship in Germany. Finally, I discuss the results as well as conclusions and recommendations.

## **5.1 Personal Path Towards Social Entrepreneurship**

The first category includes those aspects that can be encompassed within the micro-level of the integrative framework for social entrepreneurship, which are the educational background, the working experience, caring responsibilities, and the motivation to start a social enterprise.

## *5.1.1 Education and Working Experience*

All interviewed social entrepreneurs have a higher educational level, at least a bachelor's degree, two of them a PhD. The main studied disciplines are social studies, such as media studies, sociology, social pedagogy, integrated European studies, cultural studies, journalism, economics, political sciences, social work, psychology, developmental studies, and coaching. Other few had degrees in business administration, international business, project management and accounting, while others in mechanical engineering, industrial design, and biochemistry. Many had studied some part of their education outside of

<sup>9</sup> The direct quotations from the interviews were translated into English from the original language (German or Spanish). The translations were made by me, acknowledging the contextual and cultural inferences that are made when translating.

Germany (United States of America, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Mexico, Uruguay, etc.). Regarding the educational path of the male social entrepreneurs, they have studied politics and philosophy, German studies, information technology and mechanical engineering. One has recently finished high school and another interviewee has an MBA. They have, afterwards kept learning and specializing, for example in entrepreneurship, design thinking, wilderness pedagogy, or media pedagogics.

With regards to the working experience, most of the female founders had some experience before starting their social enterprises and some were still working half-time somewhere else while managing their businesses. Again, many interviewed female social entrepreneurs had working experience abroad or were working internationally through their enterprises. In general, several had already working experience in the sector of their social enterprises or in similar sectors and positions. However, for some of them their working experience included different areas from those of their social enterprises. In one case of the interviewed male social entrepreneurs the social enterprise is not his first and last established start-up.

## *5.1.2 Caring Responsibilities*

Seven from all respondents are married and have children. For them, settingup the enterprise happened during, while and after they had children. The rest of the respondents either have a partner but no children, or do not have children nor a partner. None of the respondents mentioned other types of caring responsibilities, such as caring for a relative with disabilities or an elderly. Most of the interviewed male social entrepreneurs have no caring responsibilities, they are not married, or have a partner and do not have children. One is married without children, and another interviewee is married and a recent father.

All interviewed social entrepreneurs have a higher educational degree and working experience. Female social entrepreneurs have international experience, while only in the case of some male social entrepreneurs there was formal education in entrepreneurship. Caring responsibilities for female social entrepreneurs are varied, while among the interviewed male social entrepreneurs only one was a recent father.

## *5.1.3 Personal Motivation*

With regards to their personal motivation to start a social enterprise, almost all respondents (17)<sup>10</sup> discussed the main motivation as a personal call, dream, and passion. They mentioned desires and dreams as children or young students, to help, study or work in professions related to the social sector, some were volunteering, some had always had some interest in such topics, in many cases, there was always the desire to do good.

Another personal motivation to start the social business for almost all respondents was that they had identified a market gap (17). Usually, through a personal (13) or a professional experience (9). They would identify a need, a problem, an unresolved issue in the social sector, and would then acknowledge that there was no solution, or if there was, any optimal solution for that problem. That motivated them to start considering the idea to create something themselves to solve it. Through personal experiences, related to the social purpose of their enterprises these founders were able to identify that particular market gap or social problem. For example, experiencing a difficult time after the birth of a child, being unable to find a needed service, reading an article or a book,

10 The number in brackets refers to the number of interviewees who stated that idea. This research is not intended to be quantitative, but the frequency underlines the relevance of the statement.

11 FSE stands for female social entrepreneur, and a number is provided for each interviewee. MSE stands therefore for male social entrepreneur, and EXP stands for expert. Moreover, 'T' stands for translation, and 'O' for original language.

attending a meeting or an event, etc. In the same sense, experiencing the social need or market gap within the working environment or in the professional realm was also common. Founders, while working, directly acknowledged that the area had potential to cover social needs, that were not being met.

For many female founders (7), an important trigger to build up the motivation to start a social business was having an experience abroad, living or working in another country, or just travelling and experiencing other cultures and ways of life. There is, in many, an orientation towards learning different languages, curiosity about cultures and travel, the desire to see the world and work in a more international environment.

FSE 10 O *Ich war tatsächlich mit Couchsurfing unterwegs im Nahen Osten, in der Türkei, im Libanon, in Syrien, hm, also ich habe wahnsinnig viele Menschen kennengelernt. Also, diese Reise war für mich so ein Schatz.*

For many of them (7), the motivation and the actual implementation of the social enterprise, were also related to the particular life phase they were going through or a need for change. They would argue either that they were young, so that they could 'afford' the risk of starting an own social business, they did not have many responsibilities, no children, and had time to try things out and start over if it would not work out. Others were at a life stage where they would need change, something different, they were looking for another challenge in life, especially professionally.

Also important within the personal motivations to start a social enterprise was for some (6) to have more flexibility and freedom regarding their working hours and decision-making.

As stated earlier, regarding their dream and passion, many founders (5) mentioned that in some way they always wanted to 'change or save the world', make the world a better place.

Many of the interviewed female social entrepreneurs (5), after they had identified the market gap, or the social need that was not being met, would intensely research and analyse the situation, and would encounter that there was actually no product or service in that particular sector, they would really clarify the social need, the target group, the severity of the problem, the services and products that were available, etc.

For other few women (4), establishing their social enterprise happened because of a natural development, of how things, without forcing them, turned out for them. It was a natural path, each step just happened, and they accepted the terms and followed along. The clear idea to start that specific type of enterprise was not at the beginning, it slowly and naturally formed and developed.

For only two of the female respondents, role models or upbringing was part of the motivation to start a social business. Both interviewees, had mothers that were self-employed and entrepreneurs, and they mention that this influenced their decision. For all other respondents, upbringing, or the influence of their parents was not relevant.

The sample includes three social entrepreneurs that were born in Latin America and live in Germany for many years. They started their social enterprises in Germany. During the interviews, there were two personal motivations that only they discussed. On the one hand, to have financial independence from their husbands. This was important for two of them because having to start all over again in a new country, they were at first dependent on the salary of their husbands, as well as dedicated to the care of their children. For them it was important to gain financial independency, such as what they had before they moved to Germany. On the other hand, the three of them were motivated by the fact that their social businesses are part of their identities, they remind them of who they are, and they can honour that identity through their enterprises. For one case, setting-up the enterprise was a very subjective process of introspection and transforming a personal need into something useful for more people.

The main personal motivations to start a social enterprise were a personal call, dream or passion, the identification of a market gap, whether through a personal or professional experience. Also important were aiming at having more flexibility and freedom as well as a specific life phase or a need for change, and the desire to change or save the world. Specifically, for FSE experiences abroad were in many cases triggers for the establishment of the social enterprise.

## *5.1.4 Self-Actualization*

The interview included a discussion around happiness and self-actualization. This last term is defined by Maslow (1970) as a person's desire for self-fulfilment, the tendency to become actualized in what the person is potentially. There is great variation on the specific form that these needs will take. The clear emergence of these needs usually rests upon some prior satisfaction of the physiological, safety, love, and esteem needs. The social entrepreneurs were asked how the establishment and development of their social enterprises impacted their levels of happiness and self-actualization. For many of them (12), starting the social business was making a dream, a vision, a mission come true, they feel grateful and state they have a meaningful life and had fun running their businesses. Male social entrepreneurs highlighted that it has been a possibility to follow their inner guideline, to what makes sense to them.

MSE 04 O *Ich glaube ich habe nie einen Job gehabt, der mich so glücklich gemacht hat.* MSE 04 T *I think I had never a job that made me this happy.*

For many others (8), having started the social business has provided them with self-determination and freedom surrounding their professional lives. They feel more independent and in control, being able to make their own decisions.

Starting a social enterprise has provided for many (6) of them an opportunity to learn and grow, not only professionally, but also personally.

FSE 10 T *You make so many contacts, you build, I think, spoken all dumbly, for me personally, career-wise, I cannot think anything better can happen, because if it would not work out, you have had so much experience.*

Also important for some (5) social entrepreneurs and their self-actualization has been the fact that starting their own social business allowed them recognition and receiving direct feedback about their behaviour, performance, and decisions.

However, although most of them perceive that their happiness and self-actualization has improved, some of the respondents (6) pointed out the danger of burn-out, of suffering under the social pressures and competition that self-employment entails.

It was also underlined (3) that being the founder of a social enterprise is just one in many dimensions that make up their happiness or self-actualization, including other dimensions like their families, friends, and work-life balance.

Several interviewees discussed the fact that having founded a social business is a process. This process involves times when happiness and self-actualization are not paramount, or even negatively affected, other times when the awareness of them is greater. There is no static goal, and therefore there is no complete and constant feeling of happiness.

For most of the interviewees establishing the social enterprise, as underlined by their personal motivation, has allowed them to self-actualize through the realization of their vision and mission, and has provided them with selfdetermination and freedom, as well as an opportunity to learn and grow, professionally and personally. However, many also acknowledged the danger of burn-out.

## **5.2 Social Enterprises**

In this section I discuss the results regarding the social enterprises, describing their social purpose and impact, the conceptualization and understanding of the term 'social entrepreneurship', their management practices, working routines, financing and support and future goals.

## *5.2.1 Social Purpose, Contribution, and Impact*

The sample included diverse sectors and industries, as well as target populations. The social missions they pursuit can be organised in five different social areas as explained in the definition of social entrepreneurship: Building local capacity, challenging the unequal distribution of power and resources, including people socially and economically, protecting the environment and serving members of the community by improving their welfare, health and well-being. However, it is important to note, that this categorization just facilitates the analysis, because many of these social purposes intersect and are difficult to detach.

1) Protecting the environment

2) Building local capacity, focussing on education

3) Serving members of the community by improving their welfare, health, and well-being

4) Challenging the unequal distribution of power and resources

5) Including people socially and economically

## *5.2.2 Conceptualization of Social Entrepreneurship*

During the interview, social entrepreneurs were also asked about their understanding of social entrepreneurship, and the reasons why they consider their enterprise a social enterprise. For many respondents (13) a social enterprise has to do with executing ideas to improve society, having a social purpose, or pursuing a social goal and implementing an internal 'social management' of the enterprise, like for example managing the profits in a sustainable way, including fair-trade regulations, or taking all stakeholders into account for decision-making.

In accordance with the previous definition, some (7) interviewees described social entrepreneurship as the combination of having the major impact in society and using the most efficient business model to be able to build up infrastructure and generating more positive impact, without having existential fears.

For other respondents (9), one important issue of social entrepreneurship is that the most relevant is the product or service that is being offered. Money in this type of enterprise is just a resource that makes the offering of the products and service and the functioning of the enterprise possible, most importantly it allows the enterprise to be independent and sustainable in a long-term, and to start change processes in the economy from within the economic system.

*because it brings money to the cash register. The focus is on the product, and not in the money, but of course the product is not possible without money.* FSE 11 O *Ich glaube, dass sich ein nachhaltiges Unternehmertum in diesem Kapitalismus, in dem wir nun mal leben, nur durchsetzen kann, wenn es sich wirtschaftlich rechnet, weil nur damit wird man andere Leute überzeugen.* FSE 11 T *I think a sustainable entrepreneurship in this capitalism, where we live in, can only survive, if it is economically viable, because only that way you can convince others.* FSE 07 O *Und beim sozialen, gehen halt immer alle davon aus, dass es nichts mit Geld zu tun hat, also Geld ist wirklich ein schwieriges Thema, wo alle von immer wahnsinnig von Abstand halten.  Ja da ist das Wort sozial drinnen, und mit sozial halt, bekommst du kein Geld, weil es ja oft mit Sozialhilfe verbunden wird.* FSE 07 T *And when it comes to social issues, everyone always assumes that it has nothing to do with money, so money is really a difficult topic where everyone keeps their distance from. And you should just break the inhibition, that you can also earn money, and how the whole thing works. Yes, there is the word social in there, and with social, you do not get any money, because it is often connected with social welfare.* MSE 01 O *Also es geht darum, dass dieses soziale so viel Wert kreiert das es zum Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit macht, und dass man immer mehr davon machen will, um immer mehr Impact aber auch Profitabilität zu haben, und das ist echt wichtig, dass das Leute verstehen.* MSE 01 T *So, it is about, that that social goal creates so much value that it becomes the focus of attention and that you always want to do more to have more impact and more profitability, and that is really important that people understand that.* EXP 01 O *Automatisch wird so eine neoliberale Idee von Erfolg angenommen. Also das Profit rein monetär ist, hm, es wird viel Unternehmerinnen einfach nicht gerecht. Das Geld ist fürs Machen, aber dafür müssen nicht non-profit sein, um weiterhin sense-making Aktivitäten einzustellen, der Unterschied ist das wir als Profit-Unternehmen anders im Markt wahrgenommen werden.* EXP 01 T *Profit has automatically a neoliberal idea of success. For many entrepreneurs, the idea that profit is only monetary is not appropriate. Money is for doing, but therefore we must not avoid being for-profit, to be able to keep making sense-making activities, the*  *difference is that as a profit-company you are perceived differently in the market.*

However, for some of them (7), the concept is still unclear. It is not explicit what the term involves, if it is just about being non-profit, or having a nonprofit legal form or if it has to do with the goal of the enterprise. In some few cases (3), the respondents would not state that they consider themselves social entrepreneurs, mostly, because they were earning their income through the enterprise, as their understanding of the concept included only non-profit organizations. Others confirm that there is still a lot of misperception around the term. There is confusion regarding the profit debate and which areas are considered social. Also, culturally, there is the idea and belief that social services, and their financing are provided by the state and should not become a private, profit-making issue.

The legal structure and to not depend on donations, were specially emphasised by male respondents.

Lastly, an important add-on made by the experts, mainly the professor, is the concept of sustainability. For one expert social entrepreneurship are enterprises that are socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable. Moreover, the professor mentioned that the overall concept should rather be sustainable entrepreneurship, under which social and ecological entrepreneurship are subcategories. It is about general sustainable core values, which brings with it a specific form of leadership, of good economy, and human resources. This coincides with the definition of sustainable entrepreneurship of Schaltegger & Johnson (2019) who define the sustainable value creation as value created for all sustainability dimensions simultaneously (economic, social, and environmental) and integrating individuals and societies with both economic and noneconomic benefits. Additionally, for the professor, there is societal entrepreneurship which has to do with future societal issues that involve the whole society, aiming at societal transformation, shaping future societies. Lastly, innovation, an important part of social enterprises, must include three dimensions: technological progress, market reach and social impact. In that way, the social impact should be always considered when referring to innovations in general.

For most of respondents and experts, social entrepreneurship is about executing ideas to improve society, combining the use of the most efficient business model with achieving the major impact. In this way, the service or product is the most relevant, and money or profit is just a resource to be able to have the impact, independently and within the economic system. However, for many there are still many misunderstandings and unclarities surrounding the concept. The experts added the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship.

## *5.2.3 Success*

All respondents, when asked if they were satisfied with the success of their enterprises, although they mentioned that there is still room to grow and improve, were in general satisfied. Some are satisfied with their management practice and the workload and satisfaction of their employees, with the relations they are building with volunteers and suppliers, with the growing demand based on their current success, with accomplishing the first year with revenues, their success rates with their target groups or clients and their development and growth through the years, as well as the positive feedback received from their clients.

## *5.2.4 Management Practices*

In general, the management practices of the interviewed social entrepreneurs vary in type and form. Some use specific methods, like roadmaps, controlling, and online tools for communication and project management. Many (8) present a tendency to prefer a non-hierarchical, as well as flexible and adaptable working structure. They usually have half-time working models, as well as cooperative decision-making processes and the respondents, as leaders of their enterprises, want to maintain an eye-level communication, create an agreeable working environment, that is flexible and allows changes for the specific needs of their employees and gives each employee autonomy to plan and execute their tasks; all this without undermining their accountability and legitimacy as leaders.

*alle dasselbe Gehalt bekommen. Auch dass ich mich sehr viel immer abspreche, wenn es darum geht, wollen wir jemand neues einstellen, weil ja auch alle mit diesem Menschen arbeiten müssen.

However, some (5) have in common that they underline and focus on pursuing excellent communication processes, where everyone on the team is informed about the tasks and goals, where discussion and exchange is prioritized, and decisions are usually made cooperatively. Goals and objectives are regularly reviewed and discussed among the employees, to be able to see if and how they are being met and how to improve.

*versuchen Entscheidungen immer gemeinschaftlich zu treffen, möglichst im Konsens, das ist super krass anstrengend, das nervt mich auch tierisch, das ist unheimlich gut, aber das ist auch sehr belastend, hm, und gleichzeitig haben wir auch einen immens hohen Kommunikationsaufwand nach außen.*

MSE 02 T *We have an extremely high communication activities, first in the team, because we function in such a way, that we just always try to make decisions together, preferably in consent, that is super exhausting, that annoys me enormously, that is incredibly good, but that is also very stressful, hm, and at the same time we also have external immensely high communication activities.*

These results match those from Usher Shrair (2015), who stated that 88% of the interviewed female social entrepreneurs manage their enterprises in a participatory and collaborative way as well as the results by a study by Ashoka (Taberna et al., 2019) analysing their global female Fellows. Here they found that female social entrepreneurs practice inclusive and collective leadership, which is a shared process that considers the expertise of people at all levels to address a situation, with the aim to create a deeper impact. In general, creating open collaborations is a shared strategy for both male and female social entrepreneurs, such that 90% of Ashoka Fellows are openly encouraging other institutions or groups to replicate their idea. Women, however, are even more likely to ensure women (55% vs. 43%) and children and youth (60% vs. 51%) are central to the focus of their work. There are three key forms that these leaders practice collective leadership. First, they ensure that communities have decision-making power and enable community members to lead with their own resources and expertise. Second, they create ways for people to take ownership and contribute toward a shared vision, recognizing that individuals directly impacted by a challenge have the most knowledge about the solution to problems within their own communities which in turn can lead to more powerful, systemic solutions. Third, they trust youth to lead, engaging them in decisions such as on resources, strategy, and policies, ensuring their voices are heard consistently. While this strategy is not exclusive to female social entrepreneurs, not only were women more likely to work with children and youth, but they also provide opportunities for young people to start their own initiatives as a core part of their strategy.

Finally, many female respondents (5) mention that any important decision, mostly about growing or changing, was made very mindfully, calmly, taking enough time and energy for this process.

Regarding the management practices mentioned specifically by the male social entrepreneurs, they discussed that one of the most important aspects is to have employees for a long term and creating for that a healthy environment. Moreover, one interviewee finds it fair to pay high loans (more than double as the average), because of the intense emotional work that the activities require. Central for their work is to maintain a critical culture, where during and after every workshop have a quality review process through peer-to-peer feedback. He also explained that he had to change his leadership style from laissez-faire to providing structure and taking responsibility. Finally, an interviewee mentioned that it was important for them to stay independent from political parties and other, as well as to cooperate with all stakeholders.

Ryland & Jaspers (2019) present their findings from interviews with successful female entrepreneurs, proposing to rethink the world of work, precisely through the way these female entrepreneurs were managing and leading their enterprises. Thus, they provide guidelines with regards to organizational development, leadership, recruitment, personal development, team building, innovation, and fundraising. One important aspect was that all entrepreneurs used a transparent goal setting, decision-making, and feedback process, they were all creating a people-centred work culture, embracing their vulnerability, investing in their own personal development, and growing only if it would serve their missions and their teams. These findings match the findings of this research and confirm that female leaders and entrepreneurs are also applying alternative management and leadership formats and contributing to the transformation of the functioning structures in business. In the future, definitions of leadership, management, and entrepreneurship, should consider these goals and practices as well.

All respondents were satisfied with the success of their enterprises, although for all there is still room to grow and improve. For many interviewees, the main management practices they are using are non-hierarchical, flexible, and adaptable working structures, as well as pursuing excellent communication processes and cooperative decision-making. Specially for female social entrepreneurs, the important decisions are made very mindfully, taking enough time and energy to consider all aspects.

## *5.2.5 Innovation*

Regarding innovation practices, all interviewed social enterprises have been an innovation in a specific sector. All founders have created an innovative way to solve a problem and support a social purpose. Many of the services and products provided by them did not existed in that specific way before, they are pioneers in their sectors. Some of them underline the fact that if they would have not been innovative, they would not have succeeded. Consequently, innovation is part of their enterprises and management processes. Innovation is always serving the purpose to solve the social problem more optimally, to pursuit that social mission or serve the target group/clients more effectively. Some acknowledge that their enterprises are constantly changing and transforming, and this through innovation. Nonetheless, no interviewee mentioned innovation when describing the concept of social entrepreneurship, which points out that although innovation is a valuable part of their enterprises, it is still not as relevant for its definition.

*in ganz Europa, zumindest in meiner Recherche vor 2-3 Jahren, kein Angebot, dass das so verbindet.*

MSE 04 T *There are many offers with music, there are also many programmes to promote language learning, but there is not one in all Europe, at least after my research 2-3 years ago, no offer that combines it the way we do.*

## *5.2.6 Working Routines*

Working routines of most of the interviewed social entrepreneurs usually involve flexibility regarding their working location (many do home-office some days, many must be a lot on the road on conferences and meetings, some even spend half the year in another country due to the enterprise, others use a coworking space, etc.). Therefore, most of them underline the importance of organization and communication with the team, clarity with the tasks each employee has, as well as the use of technological tools and regular meetings. As previously mentioned, some have another half-time job, which also requires self-organization and appropriate time management. Many mention the life quality this freedom and flexibility has provided them. However, some also mentioned that they work 12 hours daily, being always available and working due to the internet, so they also underline that it is a hard path which requires a lot of work. In one case for a male social entrepreneur, the work for the social enterprise is still on a volunteer basis and he survives financially thanks to his half-time job. In another case, the enterprise has been paused for some months to resolve some personal issues and work on another project.

*habe keine Wochenenden, keinen Urlaub, aber das ist ja auch so eine Internetgeschichte, immer erreichbar. Das Problem ist halt, was heißt das Problem, "Blessing in disguise", egal, mir macht es alles unheimlich viel Spaß und ich bin halt bei meinem Purpose.*

FSE 05 T *My every day is quite repetitive. I do not have an office where I can go. I am always working, I do not have weekends, no vacations, always available due to internet, but it is a 'blessing in disguise', I have so much fun doing it, it is my purpose.*

#### *5.2.7 Employees, Financing and Resources*

Of the 17 female respondents, seven of them are solo entrepreneurs – without employees. Some of them work with volunteers, some work with temporary staff (like a lawyer, a web developer, etc.), and some have either a half-time assistant or interns. Those who have employees have between 6 and 15 employees with full and half-time contracts. Many have additionally also some freelance workers supporting them. The interviewed male social entrepreneurs have established middle or small sized enterprises. They have either half-time employees, freelance employees, volunteers, or in some cases one or two minimum wage employees. None of the male social entrepreneurs are solo entrepreneurs.

Because of the sampling process, many of the respondents had received a prize (which in some cases was not financial but counselling and professional support) through an organization or initiative for start-ups or social enterprises. Six of the interviewees started with own capital, either personal savings or the loan of a relative. The rest started and work with a hybrid model, which is usually upheld at the beginning by their own pro bono work, in some cases for more than a year, and by receiving a financial prize or financial support by a foundation or association, donations, volunteer work, income generated by their products/services, cooperation's and others. The main supporters have been the Social Impact Lab, the Google Impact Challenge, Ashoka, Schwab Foundation, McKinsey, as well as other foundations, associations, and the federal and regional state. One of the male founders was funded by a private investor, and for another private investors and their own capital were also part of the hybrid model of financing. In this way, all were in some way supported by some initiatives, programmes, or funding.

#### *5.2.8 Future Goals*

All the interviewed social entrepreneurs have future goals and further development goals for their enterprises. They all are planning some sort of growth or improvement, including some strategic plans to accomplish them. Some are planning to fund new enterprises, organizations, or associations, some to expand or create a first or second location. They are looking for investors, developing new services or products, including new target groups (also new countries), and new objectives, developing a more efficient social business model, using new tools and methods. For many of them, these plans and changes have started naturally or organically, and they are including them as goals after calmly and mindfully having reviewed the motivations, consequences, needs, etc.

MSE 02 O *Genau, also wir sind jetzt schon seit letztem Jahr Dezember, haben wir Architekten, und wir sind da schon in einer Bauphase, wir sind gerade in der dritten, das heißt es wird viel geplant. 2019, dadurch das wir mit sehr vielen öffentlichen Geld was machen, d.h. fast das ganze Jahr werden nur die Aufträge dann ausgeschrieben und Genehmigungen geholt, und 2020 wird dann der erste Stein bewegt, und 2021 soll das fertig sein.*

MSE 02 T *Exactly, now we are since December from last year, we have architects, we are on the construction phase, now on the third, so currently is a lot of planning going on. 2019, as we are doing a lot with public funds, which means the whole next year are going to be filling orders and applying for permits, and 2020, the first stone will be moved, so that in 2021 it should be finished.*

All respondent's social enterprises are innovations in their sectors. Their working routines involve flexibility and efficient time management. For the majority, the financing of the enterprises was allowed through some sort of support either by the state, foundations, or organizations, as well as using a financing hybrid model. However, some have financed their enterprises with private investments and their own pro bono work, as well as half-time jobs. All have future goals to grow and expand.

## **5.3 Doing Gender in Social Entrepreneurship**

The assignment of a person to a sex is ordinarily justified based on the possession of female or male genitalia; however, sex categorization involves the display and recognition of socially regulated external signs, such as manner, dress, and behaviour. The relationship between sex category and gender is the relationship between being a recognizable mandatory of a sex category and being accountable to current cultural conceptions of behaviour compatible with the 'essential natures' of a woman or a man. This is conceptualized as an ongoing situated process, a 'doing' rather than a 'being', transforming an ascribed status into an achieved status, moving masculinity and femininity from natural, essential properties of individuals to interactional, social properties of a system of relationships. In this way, one can never not do gender, because it is such an integral part of individual identity as well as societal structures, because gender is relevant in every social situation. Moreover, the accomplishment of gender is at once interactional and institutional, and therefore it has political implications. Members of society 'do difference' by creating distinctions among themselves, as incumbents of different sex categories, different race categories, and different class categories. These distinctions are discriminatory, thus not natural, normal, or essential. But once the distinctions have been created, they are used to affirm different category incumbents 'essentially different natures' and the institutional arrangements based on these, generating for example, patriarchy, racism and class oppression. Therefore, if gender attributes positioned as a basis of maintaining men's hegemony are social products, they can be changed (West & Zimmerman, 2009).

The challenge of research is to show how these forces combine. In that way, any method that captures members of society's 'descriptive accountings of states of affairs to one another' (Heritage, 1984, p. 136–37 as cited in West & Zimmerman, 2009, p. 116) can be used for the study of doing gender, and in this way includes the systematic analysis of unstructured interviews (West & Zimmerman, 2009). This research therefore proposes a systematic analysis of semi-structured interviews, about the descriptive accountings of the role of gender in social entrepreneurship, trying to analyse how assignment and categorization practices combine with the doing of gender and difference.

The study of Nentwich & Kelan (2014), which aimed at identifying a topology of doing gender, found that 'doing gender' is linked to structures, which influence how gender is done. Further, it also involves 'doing hierarchies', which normally means that the masculine is privileged over the feminine. Additionally, 'doing gender' means to explore how identities are constructed in a specific situation and focus on the ways people adopt and create subject positions, exploring the context-specificity of 'doing gender' and gender identity. Finally, gender is not always made relevant in the same way and can even be done in a subverting way. The present study aims at analysing doing gender as doing structures and hierarchies, as gendered structures are embedded in entrepreneurship and enable the construction of gender identity. In order to fulfil the expectations attached to entrepreneurship, the person often has to enact a certain gender identity according to these structures. Gendered structures (re)inforce gendered interactions. In the same way, as already discussed, the embeddedness of entrepreneurship in masculinity, shows the hierarchy in which the 'masculine' is seen as superior to the 'feminine', this hierarchical order was established through the development and research of entrepreneurship along history, a result from the dissemination of masculine attributes in entrepreneurship (Ahl, 2006), rooted in the epistemological bias of scholars (Hechavarria et al., 2017). Most importantly, this study concentrates on doing gender as doing identities, aiming at analysing how identity, the gendered identity and the professional identity are constructed, intertwined, and achieved as a social practice.

In this sense, Bruni, Gherardi & Poggio (2004) explored entrepreneurship and gender as practical accomplishments and found five processes and one metaphor of the construction of gender and entrepreneurship as intertwined practices: managing the dual presence, doing ceremonial and remedial work, boundary-keeping, footing and gender commodification. Moreover, García & Welter (2013) examined how women entrepreneurs construct their identities differently, finding that some of them perceive dissonance between womanhood and entrepreneurship discourses whereas others do not. Their results show specific ways of constructing gender identity which result in gendered practices: how women act as entrepreneurs by 'doing' and 'redoing' gender. Here the authors distinguished a group of three concepts in which women referred to practices for managing their business: the 'juggling act' as women juggled expectations with emotions and different roles, 'finding things that women bring to the business realm' such as developing a family-friendly workplace, and 'finding things in the business realm that empower women' such as participation in business networks. Moreover, an additional group of concepts refers to practices for managing relationships. Women business owners either engage in 'clearing the hurdles' or 'look for fellowship with high/similar status women'. Thus, the concepts of 'juggling act' and 'clearing the hurdles' were embraced in the category of 'doing gender' where women apply culturally available practices. The remaining three concepts were included in the category of 'redoing gender', where women challenge the gender difference. More recently, Stead (2017) studied how women navigate gendered assumptions in order to belong, by theorising how women's performing of belonging takes different forms: labelled by proxy, modelling the norm, concealment, tempered disruption, and identity-switching.

#### *5.3.1 Discourses on Gender*

After discussing with the interviewees their own path towards social entrepreneurship, as well as their understanding of it and specificities of their enterprises, the interview focused on the role that gender had played throughout these dimensions. It is important to mention, that the invitation send for the interview revealed the general subject of the research: female social entrepreneurship. In that way, respondents had already an expectation about the possible questions around this topic, and in some cases, even personal and professional interest.

The different categories analysed in this section are referred to as discourses on gender. In general, discourses can be defined as modes of speech and language, they are form and content of statements. Language is seen as a reflection and mediation of social reality. Thus, discourses, as social modes of speech that are institutionalized, have power effects because and insofar as they determine the individual's actions (Bublitz, 2019; Jäger, 2004). Moreover, within discourse theory, the concept of discourse is understood as a form of knowledge and (power) practice (Bublitz, 2019) and a social structure which on the one hand is historically constituted and acted by subjects and on the other hand, the subjects are constituted by it. Thus, without subjects there is no discourse, and without discourse there would be no subjects (Jäger, 2004). The origin and constitution of (social) reality is not attributed to an acting, senseconstituting subject, but to anonymous, rule-guided practices and structural patterns. These can be reconstructed by discourse analysis (Bublitz, 2019). In this way, discourse analysis answers the question of what can and cannot be said, by whom and how, at a certain point in time. The overall discourse of a society can be analytically divided into different strands of discourse which in turn are produced and reproduced on different levels of discourse, which interact and relate to each other. A line of discourse denotes a thematic extract from the historical overall discourse (e.g., ecological discourse, medical discourse, legal discourse, discourse of gender, etc.). The strands of discourse change in history, whereby they are usually related to previous courses. One strand of discourse, in turn, can be split up into different fragments of discourse. These are individual statements which together make up the strand of discourse (Jäger, 2004). Therefore, 'discourse' as a concept in this dissertation is understood not as merely statements by several subjects, but as a reflection and mediation of social reality and as institutionalized social modes of speech, underlining the different fragments of discourse within the strand of discourse of social entrepreneurship and gender. Important here is that this research has not used discourse analysis and therefore does not intend to describe discourses of social entrepreneurship and gender as expected from such a theoretical and methodological approach.

The discourses around gender during the interviews can be categorized into five discourse groups: discourses creating gender differences, discourses exhibiting gender discrimination, discourses endorsing intersectionality, discourses minimizing gender influence and discourses proving a 're-doing' of gender in social entrepreneurship. Following I describe each discourse category and exemplify them, as before, with direct quotations from the interviews.

Almost all the interviewed (15) provided discourses creating gender differences, stating that women and men are different, mostly regarding the way they work, their values and priorities in work, and especially underlined was their relation to money and the way it is valued and pursuit.

In this discourse category, for many, caring responsibilities and gender was an important issue as well, creating gender differences based on the role of motherhood in the life of a woman. For some of them, being a parent that has a purpose, is self-actualized, fulfilled and happy is more important than being always with the children. Having happy parents is important as role models and for the environment at home. Here also it was mentioned (5) that without the support of their male partners, who in some cases funded their enterprises, but also showed significant emotional support and 'helped' with household and caring responsibilities, they would have not been able to start the companies. This recognition, gender as an entrepreneurial resource in households, was underlined in research, stating that women contribute substantial time and labour to spousal firms, reflecting an expectation of feminised support for male economic activity, which is less likely to be reciprocated for women business owners by male partners, who may transfer greater amounts of financial capital into their female partner's venture (Marlow & Martinez Dy, 2018). These results confirm that the support of their male partners receives special recognition, which might not be the case when male entrepreneurs consider in general the support they received from their female partners.

FSE 15 O *Dann habe ich halt gesagt, hm, jetzt bin ich noch jung, also als Frau denkt man daran auch anders als Männer, und ich habe damals wirklich bewusst, weil ich damals ja 23 war, dass ich vielleicht in 5-6 Jahren mal Kinder ins Spiel kommen könnten, und dass ich, man etabliert ist.*

Some of the respondents argued with traits women are missing, must or should develop in entrepreneurship, work or, in general, that can help them and are necessary to succeed in the field, like taking more risk or being more selfconfident and showcase their successes.

*an das Jackett.* FSE 10 T *I have had, so it is a cliché that women think we are all working great, but then we do not show off our accomplishments.*

FSE 07 T *It is not always like that, yes it sounds stupid, but many women are afraid of the responsibility which comes, and if you break down the system and explain, it is not that complex, then you take away some fears.*

Some of the respondents argued with traits women are missing, must or should develop in entrepreneurship, work or, in general, that can help them and are necessary to succeed in the field, like taking more risk or being more selfconfident and showcase their successes.

*that women have more problems. Hm, exactly.

	- MSE 02 T *I learn here a lot, especially from XX who is a very, very strong woman.*

In the same way, many (7) recounted the socialization based on gender. In this way, gender differences are explained because of different forms of socializations experienced by women and by men, which creates different behaviours and attitudes in men and women. This corresponds to the socialist feminist theory which states that differences between the performance of women and men entrepreneurs are caused by variances in early and ongoing socialization, underlining the complementarity of these different traits (McAdam, 2013).

*einen irgendwo unterschwellig beeinflusst wie man dann halt in solchen Gesprächen dann auftritt oder was sich für einen so angenehm anfühlt.*

FSE 05 T *Although I do not know about that either, is it generally so with women and girls, or has the girl also been brought up in a way that is perhaps more like this, 'Oh, you're a girl, you've done that very thoroughly', and with boys perhaps more like, 'Yes, you really dared to do something, and you're such a little troublemaker' and I think it is so a bit of this narrative, that somehow unconsciously influences how you then talk with people or what feels comfortable.*

Within the discourses creating gender differences, affirmations include that women and men are different, mainly in the way they work and their values and priorities. Mostly those differences were explained because of caring responsibilities (motherhood) or socialization based on gender. Many also mentioned traits and competencies women are missing or should develop and, in some cases, interviewees differentiated themselves from typical women.