Social Entrepreneurship For Sustainable Innovations: A Case Study Of Fairphone

Abstract

Over the past several years, social entrepreneurship has been recognized as one of the most powerful tools to achieve sustainable development. Since this relationship is relatively new in the literature, there is a need for deeper examination of its many dimensions. This paper aims at analysis of the current state of the phenomenon that is social entrepreneurship for sustainable innovations in terms of innovations, drivers, and measurement of its social impact. The research has been performed with a case study approach on one company, Fairphone, and resulted in demonstrating the existence of a positive relationship between a social enterprise creating sustainable innovations and achieving both a social and environmental impact. Moreover, the research allowed categorization of sustainable innovations that exist in the company, with reference to existing literature, creation an appropriate set of drivers influencing its actions (with new findings in terms of both internal and external drivers), and broad analysis of the social impact along with its measurement.