Towards an understanding of how a higher education institution can enhance the impact of social enterprises through incubation

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new concept in Estonia and measuring the social impact of enterprises is not yet the norm. It has gained more awareness during recent years and therefore several support instruments have been established. The aim of the paper is to provide a framework for impact analysis of an incubator and analysis of the evaluation of the program for social enterprises according to the designed framework. The incubation program itself was piloted at a higher education institution. The paper addresses the concept of social enterprises, new social venture creation, incubation by a higher education institution and its impact on social enterprises. While the development of enterprises is a common topic, the research on social impact incubators is still scarce. The study is characterised by a descriptive and an exploratory study design. The paper explores the social enterprise incubator through mixed-method two-stage content analysis of the applications and self-analysis reports of the participants of the incubator. In the process of the content analysis, qualitative data analysis is used. Finally, the paper concludes that the incubator was successful as it helped the social enterprises to become sustainable and enhanced their social impact. The limitation of the research is the evaluation design which addresses measuring the successfulness of the incubation immediately after the end of the programme and not in the long-term. The study contributes to the literature on measuring the successfulness of incubation processes and on the practice of incubating new social ventures with social impact.