Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate social Responsibility

The disputation will be held digitally, because of the Corona covid-19-situation. Spectators may follow the disputation digitally – link is available below.

Felicia Naatu of the School of Business and Law at the University of Agder has submitted her his thesis entitled “Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility in Franchising” and will defend the thesis for the PhD-degree Tuesday 4 May 2021.

She has followed  the PhD-programme at theSchool of Business and Law at the University of Agder. The doctoral work are funded by University for Development Studies, UDS, Ghana.

Summary of the thesis by Felicia Naatu:

Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate social Responsibility

Why is social entrepreneurship in franchising and the adoption of corporate social responsibility initiatives and communication on the rise?

Great potential

The answer is that they are economic movements with great potential to help alleviate the social, economic, and environmental problems that the world is facing.

However, despite their potential, they are not without issues.

For instance, while social entrepreneurship is on the increase, research on some of the models such as social franchising are scant, and in practice, most of the models in the developing economies do not survive beyond their pilot phase.

In this doctoral work, we developed conceptual frameworks and identified factors and mechanisms that can improve the performance and sustainability of these social enterprises.

Limited research

We also found that, despite the importance of corporate social responsibility in franchising, there is limited research in corporate social responsibility and franchising.

Further, one of our studies in Norway showed that, government corporate social responsibility policies and approach can crowd out consumers’ intrinsic motivation to contribute towards the improvement of CSR communication practices.

Bibliometric technique, grounded theory design and structural equation modelling were used.

The findings of the studies in the thesis have practical implications for policy makers, social and business entrepreneurs, researchers as well as donors.

What to do as an audience member:

The disputation is open to the public, but to follow the trial lecture and the public defence, which is transmitted via the Zoom conferencing app, you have to register as an audience member.

We ask audience members to join the virtual trial lecture at 13:50 at the earliest and the public defense at 14:50 at the earliest. After these times, you can leave and rejoin the meeting at any time. Further, we ask audience members to turn off their microphone and camera and keep them turned off throughout the event. You do this at the bottom left of the image when in Zoom. We recommend you use ‘Speaker view’. You select that at the top right corner of the video window when in Zoom.

Opponent ex auditorio:

The chair invites members of the public to pose questions ex auditorio in the introduction to the public defense, with deadlines. It is a prerequisite that the opponent has read the thesis. Questions can be submitted to the chair Kristin Wallevik at e-mail kristin.wallevik@uia.no