The role of social entrepreneurship in the attainment of the sustainable development goals

Abstract

Despite the efforts undertaken by the United Nations to engage all public and private actors towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, the contribution of traditional businesses has been proved to be insufficient so far. Social enterprises have thus emerged as an efficient alternative to meet social needs through entrepreneurial opportunities. However, the absence of specific tools to appraise the impact of social businesses on the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a gap that this research aims to bridge by developing a novel rating system. A three-round Delphi process has been conducted by two panels of experts to identify the SDG indicators applicable to social enterprises as the main components of a three-tier framework whose weighting factors were obtained by using the Best-Worst Method after circulating a questionnaire among 100 participants. The new tool comprises a set of 28 indicators selected by the surveyed experts representing 12 SDGs, where the weight of social facet (65.3%) prevailed over those of other sustainability dimensions. The weighted sum of indicator values enables to assess the impact of enterprise activities on the SDGs. Mondragon Corporation, a leading Spanish cooperative worldwide, has been deemed as a case study for this new system.