Social entrepreneurship and embedded ties - a comparative case study of social entrepreneurship in Norway

This article investigates what purposes social entrepreneurs serve in a social democratic welfare state. More specifically, the article investigates how important embedded ties are to the success of social entrepreneurs in Norway, and to what extent social entrepreneurs depend on institutional partnerships to build and maintain their ventures. To explore these questions the authors study four social entrepreneurs in Norway. The findings show that social entrepreneurial initiatives in Norway develop at the intersection between public agencies, research and development institutions, commercial actors, and civil society (volunteer organisations and non-profit NGOs). The authors pay specific attention to the role of the welfare state in facilitating the development of social entrepreneurship in the Norwegian context, and find that social entrepreneurial ventures often depend on state-supported embedded ties and develop in collaboration with key public actors.