Congratulations to WiSo-Prof. Dr Mona Mensmann (Corporate Development) and her colleagues from the University of Warwick Fangjie Wang and Nicos Nicolaou. For their research paper Social Entrepreneurs Emerging from Adversity: A Perspective of Identity Construction via Sensemaking they recently received the "Best Paper in Social Entrepreneurship" Award of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management.
Previous research had already shown: Social Entrepreneurs can emerge through overcoming adversities. However, the question by which means adversity leads a person to become a social entrepreneur has been left unanswered. Based on a grounded theory study on social entrepreneurs, Mona Mensmann and her team developed a model for the identity development of individuals in the perception of adversities that are relevant for the foundation of a social enterprise. In total, the research team analysed 221 podcast episodes, 34 videos and 43 online articles about 62 social entrepreneurs who experienced a total of 72 adversities.
The result: How an individual perceives him/herself in relation to other victims of adversity can steer his/her perception in different directions. This creates different identities that are relevant for social entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the researcher found that adversity is only one factor, which contributes to social entrepreneurship. In addition to a better understanding of social entrepreneurship, the findings add to the literature on consciousness-raising and identity.
Prof. Dr Mona Mensmann has been working as an Associate Professor for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne since 2021. The professorship is made possible by funding from the Gateway Excellence Start-Up Center (ESC) at the University of Cologne from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.