Social enterprise and stakeholder relationships in Vietnam’s social innovation

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to investigate the role of social enterprise in coordinating stakeholder relationships to develop social innovation through the lens of stakeholder theory and its conceptual framework in sustainability management. Social enterprises are believed to feature the ability to establish and manage collaboration between stakeholders in the entrepreneurial process, therefore they are seen as the driving force in the success of social innovation. Results from a qualitative study of a social enterprise case in Vietnam to develop a bottom-up social innovation suggest three important roles of social enterprise in coordinating stakeholder relationships. Particularly, social enterprise plays an important role in developing and supplying novel products to the unfettered markets, developing networks and communication to distribute the products and disperse the social objectives and developing capabilities of all stakeholders. Besides, the analysis also suggests the crucial role in evaluation of value created by social innovation, which distinguishes social innovation with other types of innovation and illustrates the legitimacy of social enterprise. The study contributes to social innovation research in several ways. First, it extends previous studies on the success factors of social innovation and the role of social enterprise in processing social innovation. Second, the study highlights the important role of social enterprise in coordinating stakeholder relationships to create social values. The study proposes a process model for a social enterprise to enable social innovation process through the integration and embeddedness entrepreneurial action at both supply and demand sides. Third, it contextualises stakeholder theory in social innovation literature by developing the dual view of internal and external stakeholders, specifically for the civil society sector to demonstrate the role of business in society. Finally, the study contributes to the qualitative method by employing multiple data sources (interviews, documents and visual images) to enhance the rigour of the study, embodying an adaptive study approach during the current global pandemic. The thesis suggests two policy implications in (i) favourable legal frameworks for social enterprise operating with ethnic minorities and in rural areas, e.g. incentive tax, innovative financial access, marketing and network platforms and (ii) detail guidelines for evaluation of value creation or impact assessment that help social enterprises pursue their primary aims and ensure their accountability and legitimacy.