Dissertation defence (Entrepreneurship): MSc Mohamed Farhoud
Time
11.8.2023 at 12.15 - 16.15
MSc Mohamed Farhoud defends his dissertation in Entrepreneurship entitled “A Resource Dependence Perspective on Crowdfunded Social Enterprises” at the University of Turku on 11 August 2023 at 12.15 pm (Turku School of Economics, LähiTapiola lecture hall, Rehtoripellonkatu 3, Turku).
The audience can participate in the defence by remote access. https://utu.zoom.us/j/3203137225
Opponent: Professor Greg Fisher (Indiana University)
Custos: Adjunct Professor, Senior Research Fellow Pekka Stenholm (University of Turku)
Doctoral Dissertation at UTUPub: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9334-5
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Summary of the Doctoral Dissertation:
Difficulty accessing financial resources, building up legitimacy, and retaining management autonomy are real-life problems hindering social entrepreneurship’s market survival and growth. Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF), as discussed in this study, has a practical utility that can be directly applied to improve the current managerial practice of social entrepreneurs and solve a significant managerial problem related to attaining legitimacy. In particular, social enterprises can build legitimacy through stories using videos, pictures, and texts on RBCF platforms. Achieving the capital goal, or at least part of it, would also contribute to the venture’s legitimacy.
The results also suggest that retaining autonomy allows social enterprises to attend to different performance types, meaning social enterprises particularly interested in achieving multiple goals must not compromise autonomy in their resource acquisition strategies. The study also provides evidence that the RBCF outcome is unrelated to after-campaign performance. To improve performance, social enterprises must search for other resource acquisition arrangements. However, we still know surprisingly little about how and under which conditions the value of RBCF would be realised on the population level of crowdfunded social enterprises. The findings of this study will likely interest many actors engaged with crowdfunding.
Moreover, understanding the present situation is the foundation for any future strategy and policy initiatives that might be considered. This study provides a prescience characterised by foreknowledge and foresight and examines the relevance of crowdfunding as a fledgling field to enable social entrepreneurship. As such, this study contributes to the current societal and governmental conversations on financial inclusion for social enterprises within social economic policies. Such prescience will undoubtedly lead us to focus on problem domains with significant importance for the future practice of social entrepreneurship.
Crowdfunding is inherently a citizen engagement form of organising involving public sentiment. The crowd’s contributions show how much the general public supports (or not) certain goal(s) and is an important instrument for the population to set new goals and define developmental agendas that interests them most. Different actors, including policymakers, might start dialogues with crowdfunding platforms to define a routine to communicate with the population before rolling out projects.
The audience can participate in the defence by remote access. https://utu.zoom.us/j/3203137225
Opponent: Professor Greg Fisher (Indiana University)
Custos: Adjunct Professor, Senior Research Fellow Pekka Stenholm (University of Turku)
Doctoral Dissertation at UTUPub: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9334-5
***
Summary of the Doctoral Dissertation:
Difficulty accessing financial resources, building up legitimacy, and retaining management autonomy are real-life problems hindering social entrepreneurship’s market survival and growth. Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF), as discussed in this study, has a practical utility that can be directly applied to improve the current managerial practice of social entrepreneurs and solve a significant managerial problem related to attaining legitimacy. In particular, social enterprises can build legitimacy through stories using videos, pictures, and texts on RBCF platforms. Achieving the capital goal, or at least part of it, would also contribute to the venture’s legitimacy.
The results also suggest that retaining autonomy allows social enterprises to attend to different performance types, meaning social enterprises particularly interested in achieving multiple goals must not compromise autonomy in their resource acquisition strategies. The study also provides evidence that the RBCF outcome is unrelated to after-campaign performance. To improve performance, social enterprises must search for other resource acquisition arrangements. However, we still know surprisingly little about how and under which conditions the value of RBCF would be realised on the population level of crowdfunded social enterprises. The findings of this study will likely interest many actors engaged with crowdfunding.
Moreover, understanding the present situation is the foundation for any future strategy and policy initiatives that might be considered. This study provides a prescience characterised by foreknowledge and foresight and examines the relevance of crowdfunding as a fledgling field to enable social entrepreneurship. As such, this study contributes to the current societal and governmental conversations on financial inclusion for social enterprises within social economic policies. Such prescience will undoubtedly lead us to focus on problem domains with significant importance for the future practice of social entrepreneurship.
Crowdfunding is inherently a citizen engagement form of organising involving public sentiment. The crowd’s contributions show how much the general public supports (or not) certain goal(s) and is an important instrument for the population to set new goals and define developmental agendas that interests them most. Different actors, including policymakers, might start dialogues with crowdfunding platforms to define a routine to communicate with the population before rolling out projects.
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