Abstract:

Social innovation and social entrepreneurship are key elements in the development of modern societies. Whereas setting up a business and managing it towards success is commonly seen as a difficult task, the start of a social business may be even more challenging, considering its special features. This paper presents the main obstacles identified by: to be managers and managers of social organizations and experts/lecturers in the field of social economy and social entrepreneurship, and other social economy stakeholders. When undertaking the mission of setting up a social enterprise. Data was collected in four European countries under the Erasmus+ Project Social Entrepreneurship Support Europe (SES-EU)1 using interviews and questionnaires. A total of 183 stakeholders answered about the main reasons that could lead them to question the start-up of a social enterprise. The analysis was conducting based on Kruskal-Wallis H-test, the Dunn’s test for post hoc comparisons and Spearman Correlation Coefficient. The findings reveal that, although realities are different across countries, the main obstacles faced by social entrepreneurs tend to have a common ground. The other similarity identifies is the lack of a common framework for social enterprises. This lack represents the main challenges to overcome. Our research and results are of considers particular relevance for governments and other entities promoters of social entrepreneurship, since it points out the key areas of concern, to which special attention should be given in order to boost start-up of social enterprises.