Mapping social entrepreneurship in Germany - a quantitative analysis

Abstract

This paper presents data from an online survey of 244 social entrepreneurial organisations in Germany. Quantitative studies of this kind are still relatively rare in social entrepreneurship research. In part, this dearth may be due to a lack of agreement on definition criteria. Therefore, this paper first discusses definition criteria that emerge from major schools of thought in the field - earned income, innovativeness, and democratic governance - as well as sampling techniques used in previous quantitative studies of social ventures. After briefly describing our bottom up sampling approach, the paper discusses the key findings of the survey. The data suggest that most, but not all, social entrepreneurial organisations surveyed are young and small in terms of income and employees. We also found that social entrepreneurial organisations rely on a range of income sources. Although most organisations showed a regional scope, they reported intent to scale operations. We discuss our results in the context of German welfare structures and offer some conclusions on quantitative studies of social entrepreneurship.