16249: Scaling Social Enterprises: The Interplay of Entrepreneurial Capabilities and University Training (session 25750)

Social enterprises (SEs) scale to achieve more social impact, yet how they cultivate the necessary capabilities remains unclear. Drawing on absorptive capacity (ACAP) theory, this study examines how university training fosters entrepreneurial capabilities—raising finance, understanding the market, persuading stakeholders, and building networks—to enable SEs to scale. We collected survey data (n = 446) from SEs in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and applied partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results reveal that university training alone does not directly enhance scalability; rather, it boosts SEs’ scalability indirectly through the four entrepreneurial capabilities. In other words, entrepreneurial capabilities fully mediate the relationship between training and scalability, underscoring that scaling cannot be taught from scratch. Our findings contribute to a richer understanding of how individual-level training translates into SE organizational-level capability formation. We conclude by stressing the importance of capability gap awareness in SEs.

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