Constructing Change: The Influence of Education on Female Social Entrepreneurs.

Background: Female entrepreneurs often take on a role as "social change agents", and yield innovative solutions to the social problems in the communities where they live and/or work. Entrepreneurial women in developing contexts are often challenged with limited resources when they attempt to solve these social problems in their communities. The paper focuses on the role education plays (if any) in women's ability to solve complex problems and create social value. Research objectives: The primary aim of this paper is thus to explore the influence that education has on social entrepreneurial women in Africa's social value creation. Research design and methods: For this study, we followed a quantitative research method. The population consists of all female social entrepreneurs (FSEs) from Africa that are Ashoka Fellows (142 persons). Data were analysed in the SPSS). We made use of descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. Results: This insight enables us to make recommendations for the social entrepreneurial realm in terms of the importance of education and training programmes for social entrepreneurs but in addition make recommendations based on the good practice of social entrepreneurs. Conclusions: We argue such social entrepreneurial women have to apply their knowledge in innovative ways in an attempt to solve complex problems in communities in order to create social value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]