Profiling the Romanian woman social entrepreneur: an analysis of the women’s perspective in the social enterprises’ sector

Abstract

The Romanian social economy includes a diversity of organizations and domains, adopting models of classic social enterprises, hybrid or sometimes even innovative models, many of them being initiated by women. Considering that women are very well represented in terms of gender distribution among social innovators, we propose exploratory research to profile the successful Romanian woman social entrepreneur, paying special attention to the women leading the Romanian emergent social enterprises sector. Our paper includes qualitative research based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with seven key successful women social entrepreneurs, nominated and/or awarded Romanian or European prizes in the field of social economy. Our investigations, also supplemented by a data processing and analysis of the Single Register of Evidence of Certified Social Enterprises in Romania from June 2022 concerning the involvement of women in the management of social enterprises, represent the first approach to this topic, contributing to understanding the profile of the Romanian woman social entrepreneur, and also offering an analysis of the women’s perspective in the social enterprises’ sector.