Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-2r2wp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-13T14:33:33.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

At the Intersection of Social Entrepreneurship and Social Movements: The Case of Egypt and the Arab Spring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Yomna Elsayed
Yomna Elsayed*
Affiliation:
Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California, Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA
*
yelsayed@usc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

With a history of civic associations turned political, and an ongoing sociopolitical transformation in Egypt, social entrepreneurship (SE) has proliferated as an alternative to traditional forms of civic engagement such as charities on one hand and open activism on the other. Yet, situated between a desire for change, and the overpowering state and market logics, SE has been both limited and shaped by neoliberal and local-authoritarian visions. Using Egypt as the case, this study combines in-depth interviews with civil society practitioners, and field observation at an SE incubator, to examine how SE came to embody a desire for change using publicly sanctioned logics, all while enacting practices that preserve/revitalize a social movement in abeyance. By examining SE as part of a larger phenomenon in this particular moment of transition, this timely research allows us to investigate a link between social movements and SE not as two separate phenomena but as different ways of approaching the same thing: creating social transformation.

Keywords

Social entrepreneurshipSocial movementsCivil societyArab SpringEgypt

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , August 2018 , pp. 819 - 831
Copyright
Copyright © International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abd El-Wahab, A. (2012). The January 25th uprisings through or in spite of civil society?. IDS Bulletin, 43(1), 71–77. doi: 10.1111/j.1759-5436.2012.00292.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adly, A. (2014). Reforming the entrepreneurship ecosystem in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia. Stanford: Stanford Publications.Google Scholar
AFP. (2006). Hassan Al-Banna, founding father of Egypt’s Muslim brotherhood. Retrieved October 10, 2016 from http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=3272.Google Scholar
Alvord, S. H., Brown, L. D., & Letts, C. W. (2004). Social entrepreneurship and societal transformation: An exploratory study. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 40(3), 260–282. doi: 10.1177/0021886304266847.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arishie, M. (2011). Why Serbia in particular? Egyptian Gazette. Retrieved October 10, 2016 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Why+Serbia+in+particular%3F-a0262966612.Google Scholar
Battilana, J., Lee, M., Walker, J., & Dorsey, C. (2012). In search of the hybrid ideal. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 10(3), 50–55.Google Scholar
Beem, C. (1999). The Necessity of Politics. Chicago: Reclaiming American Public Life.Google Scholar
Boss, S. (2013). An Arab Spring for entrepreneurs. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved May 15, 2017 https://ssir.org/articles/entry/an_arab_spring_for_entrepreneurs.Google Scholar
Brandsen, T. (2010). Civicness in organizations a reflection on the relationship between professionals and managers. In Brandsen, T., Dekker, P., & Evers, A. (Eds.), Civicness in the governance and delivery of social services (pp. 9–18). Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. doi: 10.5771/9783845222400-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. doi: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, W. (2003). Neo-liberalism and the end of liberal democracy. Theory & Event, 7(1), 36–59.10.1353/tae.2003.0020CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dees, J. G., & Anderson, B. B. (2006). Framing a theory of social entrepreneurship: Building on two schools of practice and thought. Research on Social Entrepreneurship: Understanding and Contributing to an Emerging Field, 1(3), 39–66.Google Scholar
Defourny, J., & Nyssens, M. (2010). Conceptions of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States: Convergences and divergences. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 1(1), 32–53. doi: 10.1080/19420670903442053.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Develterre, P. (1994). Co-operation and Development. Leuven: Acco.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Collective rationality and institutional isomorphism in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160. doi: 10.2307/2095101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doherty, B., Haugh, H., & Lyon, F. (2014). Social enterprises as hybrid organizations: A review and research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(4), 417–436. doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12028.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Dahshan, M. (2014). Do Egypt’s new leaders hate entrepreneurs? Foreign Policy. Retrieved October 10, 2016 from http://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/13/do_egypts_new_leaders_hate_entrepreneurs.Google Scholar
El-Dahshan, M., Tolba, A., & Badreldin, T. (2012). Enabling entrepreneurship in Egypt: Toward a sustainable dynamic model. Innovations, 7(2), 83–106. doi: 10.1162/INOV_a_00130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliasoph, N., Lo, J., & Glaser, V. (2015). Structured ambiguity: How institutional logics work in everyday life. Presented at the Conference on Pragmatism and Sociology, Chicago University.Google Scholar
Elkington, J., & Hartigan, P. (2013). The power of unreasonable people: How social entrepreneurs create markets that change the world. Boston: Harvard Business Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M., Davidson, A. I., & Burchell, G. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Friedland, R., & Alford, R. (1991). Bringing society back in symbols, practices and institutional contradictions. In Powell, W., & Dimaggio, P. (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 232–263). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Garrow, E. E., & Hasenfeld, Y. (2014). Social enterprises as an embodiment of a neoliberal welfare logic. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(11), 1475–1493. doi: 10.1177/0002764214534674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giugni, M. (1998). Was it worth the effort? The outcomes and consequences of social movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 24(1), 371–393. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanafi, S. (2012). The Arab revolutions; the emergence of a new political subjectivity. Contemporary Arab Affairs, 5(2), 198–213. doi: 10.1080/17550912.2012.668303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasso, F. (2015). Civil and the limits of politics in revolutionary Egypt. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 35(3), 605–621. doi: 10.1215/1089201X-3426445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hazenberg, R., Bajwa-Patel, M., Mazzei, M., Roy, M. J., & Baglioni, S. (2016). The role of institutional and stakeholder networks in shaping social enterprise ecosystems in Europe. Social Enterprise Journal, 12(3), 302–321. doi: 10.1108/SEJ-10-2016-0044.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinnebusch, R. (1993). The politics of economic reform in Egypt. Third World Quarterly, 14(1), 159–171. doi: 10.1080/01436599308420318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirby, D., & Ibrahim, N. (2011). Entrepreneurship education and the creation of an enterprise culture: Provisional results from an experiment in Egypt. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7(2), 181–193. doi: 10.1007/s11365-010-0153-0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lichterman, P., & Eliasoph, N. (2014). Civic action. American Journal of Sociology, 120(3), 798–863. doi: 10.1086/679189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linn, N., & Linn, E. (2015). Egypt’s war on charity, foreign policy. Retrieved October 10, 2016 from http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/29/egypts-war-on-charity-morsi-muslim-brotherhood/.Google Scholar
Maher, S. (2011). The political economy of the Egyptian uprising. Monthly Review, 63(6), 32–45. doi: 10.14452/MR-063-06-2011-10_2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mair, J., & Marti, I. (2006). Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight. Journal of world business, 41(1), 36–44. doi: 10.1016/j.jwb.2005.09.002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McInerney, P. (2014). From social movement to moral market: How the circuit riders sparked an IT revolution and created a technology market. Stanford: Stanford University Press doi: 10.11126/stanford/9780804785129.001.0001.Google Scholar
Mikhail, A. (2014). The obliteration of civil society in Egypt, openDemocracy. Retrieved October 10, 2016 https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/amira-mikhail/obliteration-of-civil-society-in-egypt.Google Scholar
Mische, A. (2003). Cross-talk in movements: Reconceiving the culture-network link. In Diani, M., & McAdam, D. (Eds.), Social movements and networks. Relational approaches to collective action (pp. 258–280). New York: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/0199251789.003.0011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montessori, N. M. (2016). A theoretical and methodological approach to social entrepreneurship as world-making and emancipation: Social change as a projection in space and time. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 28(7–8), 536–562. doi: 10.1080/08985626.2016.1221229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nasser, H. (2014). Not by accident: How Egyptian civil society successfully launched a revolution, CUNY Academic Works. Retrieved from http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1147&context=gc_etds. Accessed 26 Dec 2017.Google Scholar
Polanyi, K. (1944). The great transformation: Economic and political origins of our time. New York: Rinehart.Google Scholar
Prahalad, C. K. (2006). The fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid. Bengaluru: Pearson Education India.Google Scholar
Roy, M. J., McHugh, N., Huckfield, L., Kay, A., & Donaldson, C. (2015). “The most supportive environment in the world”? Tracing the development of an institutional ‘ecosystem’ for social enterprise. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 26(3), 777–800. doi: 10.1007/s11266-014-9459-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santos, F. M. (2012). A positive theory of social entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Ethics, 111, 335–351. doi: 10.1007/s10551-012-1413-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, J. (1975). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (2013). Diminished democracy: From membership to management in American civic life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Slim, H. (2002). Not philanthropy but rights: The proper politicisation of humanitarian philosophy. The International Journal of Human Rights, 6(2), 1–22. doi: 10.1080/714003759.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spear, R. (2010). Social entrepreneurship and social movements, Skoll colloquium on social entrepreneurship, Oxford University (June). Retrieved October 10, 2016 from https://www.academia.edu/4183726/Social_Entrepreneurship_and_Social_Movements.Google Scholar
Steiner, A., Teasdale, S., & Teasdale, S. (2016). The playground of the rich? Growing social business in the 21st century. Social Enterprise Journal, 12(2), 201–216. doi: 10.1108/SEJ-12-2015-0036.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swidler, A., & Watkins, S. C. (2009). “Teach a man to fish”: The sustainability doctrine and its social consequences. World Development, 37(7), 1182–1196. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.11.002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarrow, S., & Tilly, C. (2009). Contentious politics and social movements. In The Oxford handbook of comparative politics, Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566020.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199566020-e-19. Accessed 26 Dec 2017.Google Scholar
Taylor, V. (1989). Social movement continuity: The women’s movement in abeyance. American Sociological Review, 54(5), 761–775. doi: 10.2307/2117752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C., & Wood, L. J. (2015). Social Movements 1768–2012. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuğal, C. (2012). Fight or acquiesce? Religion and political process in Turkey’s and Egypt’s neoliberalizations. Development and Change, 43(1), 23–51. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2012.01762.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuğal, C. (2013). Contesting benevolence: Market orientations among Muslim aid providers in Egypt. Qualitative sociology, 36(2), 141–159. doi: 10.1007/s11133-013-9248-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yunus, M. (2007). Creating a world without poverty: Social business and the future of capitalism. Public Affairs.Google Scholar