From Social Innovation to Social Value Creation
Learning from Female Social Entrepreneur Movement in Indonesia
Prameshwara Anggahegari, Gatot Yudoko and Bambang Rudito
School of Business and Management, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Jl. Ganesha no 10, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Social values, Social Innovation, Social Movement, Female Social Entrepreneur.
Abstract: This paper conveys social values creation as efforts initiated by female social entrepreneur in Indonesia. Their
movements are seen as attempts to empower and create sustainable ecosystems, both in societal and economic
system. This paper fills the gap in the literatures and provides conceptual model for the social values creation
by suggesting social entrepreneurship business model, which entailing social innovations. Authors
implemented mix methods by conducting integrative literature reviews and undertaking grounded approach
within the data collection. It provides several major constructs of social empowerment, social sustainability,
as well as social benefit. It shows that social innovation which were motored by several female social
entrepreneur contributes to the social movement and have significantly proven in providing social benefits to
the community. The conceptual model proposed by authors may further be used to develop social projects as
well as giving insights for further research regarding social values creation through the process of social
innovation.
1 INTRODUCTION
Social entrepreneurship is deemed important in
alleviating both economic and social problems
worldwide. This movement has presented quite
important impacts and proven to create awareness in
larger societies, as can be seen by the rocketing
numbers of the social enterprise initiation,
specifically in Indonesia. Numerous recorded
change-making attempts, ranges from local until
global context, have raised our interest within this
area. Needless to say that the awareness of the
concept of empowerment has also purportedly being
translated into action by some people who has
eagerness in not only develop themselves but also
others.
Nevertheless, there is paucity within the
literatures and the application, as well as the impact
measurements. Research regarding social value
creation, which are motored by female social
entrepreneur, is very limited. Even if so existed, the
mixed methods to create synergistic and robust
studies are rarely used, since mostly only using one
type of methods. In Indonesia, several social
entrepreneurs have already being awarded and
recognized by social entrepreneurships practitioners
worldwide for their ability to tackle problems within
their surroundings. Many of them, even though
sometimes constricted by the social structures, are
female. Moreover, since in this country’s majority of
the kinship structures are patriarchal, female
struggles were still ostracized and belittled. On the
other hand, several reports on their attempts to help
others has already recognized as another social
movements which should be seen as their portion in
the attempts to empowering others.
According to Ecosystem Danone, from around 7
billion people that currently live all over the world,
more than half live in poverty, and 70% are female.
This is quite align with Indonesia Central Bureau of
Statistics, from around 250 million citizen, more than
27 million were in an impoverished condition (BPS,
2017). According to the Community-Based Welfare
Monitoring Survey (SPKBK), more than half that are
on the lowest income are households that were
headed by female or put female as the main earner of
the family. This figure shows that these female were
facing numerous hardships due to their current
condition and these several conditions has put these
female into a destitutions circumstances. For
example, Indonesia Marriage Law no 1 year 1974,
which stated that females are not recognized as
household head. Even though they have become
household head due to several reasons, namely the
passed away of their husband, divorce, polygamous
husband, the law cannot ensure much to protect their
needs.
86
Anggahegari, P., Yudoko, G. and Rudito, B.
From Social Innovation to Social Value Creation - Learning from Female Social Entrepreneur Movement in Indonesia.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 86-90
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Despite many female were being
underrepresented, several others shows their potential
and do help others through the empowerment
initiative. In order to accommodate the social needs
and problems that need to be tackled seriously, these
female social entrepreneurs even change their purely-
profit oriented business focus and target into social
enterprises. These gestures are seen as social
entrepreneurship, which is about channeling
entrepreneurial activity towards solving social
problems (Corner and Ho, 2011). Based on the huge
number of female that can be seen as untapped
potentials, authors seen that this is a major
opportunity to practice the social entrepreneurship by
entailing social innovation as one of the major point
in order to create sustainability. It may be applied
both on their social enterprises as well as in the
community context that can be done through
empowerment process. Thus, this research aim is to
give clear understanding on the process of finding
several points that were used to build initial construct
for the model. This model was built by using
deductive approach through integrative literature
reviews. Meanwhile since it is imperative to see this
measures be taken seriously by keeping a close
observation, authors do the grounded approach. It is
implemented in order to understand how does the
empowerment process being implemented in
grassroots level. Therefore, it may give more robust
details in developing the conceptual model by using
mixed method and may contribute to the social
entrepreneurship and gender literatures.
There are few notions that differentiating sex and
gender. Oakley (1972) refers sex to differences on the
basis of biological characteristics, while gender is a
symbolic or social difference that stems from gender
differences. Therefore, it may be concluded that
gender is defined as a social construction or attribute
imposed on humans, which is built by culture.
Despite their ability to position themselves in the
organization successfully, these females were still
trapped by male-culture where they need to perform
harder to be acknowledged (Hakim, 1995).
According to Jayawerdana (1976) patriarchal
countries, such as Indonesia, consist of many ethnic
variations in which influences each other depend on
the cultural background.
Culture is taking a great deal of positions within
Indonesia’s religious majority in their day-to-day
activities along with the importance of local wisdom.
It is strongly believed that vested culture of Indonesia
and diverse demographic which in some part is quite
paternalistic, gives female barriers to pursue their
career path. Even though the government has already
stated their gender mainstreaming process and
measures have been taken, it still lacked in the
implementation. As related with the sex and gender,
the analysis in this research will be directed at
individual, private, intrapersonal, self-reflective
identity (Baumeister, 1998; Brown, 1998). The
interpersonal, social, or relational self depends on
connections between people (Andersen and Chen,
2002; Baumeister, 1998). The relational self can
operate automatically to accommodate people in the
particular social context (Chen, Boucher, and Tapias,
2006). Females have seen the concept of themselves
as competent individuals who have potential to do
more, both for them and for society. There are
multiple reasons, which drives female motivation to
involve in social entrepreneurship.
Due to Indonesia’s social structure, among
diverse options for female to perform, there are two
main options that most female choose, whether to
become a housewife or work in a professional basis.
However, due to the needs and problems in the fields
there is another option to comprise both. It may be
seen from the preference of become an entrepreneur.
Related with the option to create their own
business or enterprise, according to Ajzen (1991),
entrepreneurship is an attitude that may reflect
motivation and ability to identify opportunities and to
generate new values for an economic success.
Entrepreneurship is often suggested as a
breakthrough to overcome poverty (Gries and Naudé
2009; Dixon and Clifford 2007) and considered as
process of cultural innovation (Berger, 1991).
Another important definition were emphasized by
Zimmerer that define entrepreneurship as a process in
applying creativity through innovation in order to
find opportunities to improve certain aspects in life.
Thus, the word ‘process’ also held a great deal of
meaning. So, the concept of entrepreneurship may be
used as one of the solution to tackle both economical
and societal problems in Indonesia and may be used
as one of the medium to solve the dependency that
has become emergent issues.
While conventional entrepreneurship is primarily
concerned with discovering and exploiting business
opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000),
social entrepreneurship is about channeling
entrepreneurial activity towards solving social
problems (Corner and Ho, 2010). It is then creating
new dichotomy in social senses other than creating
economic value (Dees, 1998; Clastkowski, Baily, and
Baily, 1996).
There are several points that may be able to help
us to understand core motives for females’
involvement social entrepreneurship, which are
From Social Innovation to Social Value Creation - Learning from Female Social Entrepreneur Movement in Indonesia
87

belonging that is people who are motivated to affiliate
and bond with each other, they seek social belonging
with their own kind, the most basic social motive of
all (Fiske, 2004; Baumeister and Leary, 1995). The
second one is understanding, a concept shows core
social motive (Fiske, 2004; Hardin and Higgins,
1996). People’s motive to understand adapts them to
group life and its shared view of reality (Hardin and
Higgins, 1996). Next is controlling, a motive that
encourages people to feel competent and effective at
dealing with their social environment and themselves.
The fourth motive is enhancing self since most people
basically like to feel good (Taylor and Brown, 1988)
In short, people need to feel good about them due to
self-enhancement, which comprises both self-esteem
and self-improvement. Some people emphasize
putting oneself first and viewing oneself in a positive
light, but others emphasize the humble self, always
striving to improve and putting others first. The fifth
is trust as a form of social intelligence.
The above theory regarding the female motives
and traits are one of the major drives on why female
interested in doing social entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is often based on ethical motives
and moral responsibility (Bornstein, 1998; Catford,
1998), thus the motives for social entrepreneurship
can also include less altruistic reasons such as
personal fulfillment. Secondly, and more importantly,
entrepreneurship in the business sector also has social
aspects.
This aspect may give female alternatives in order
to self-actualizing by helping other people to fulfill
their self-needs. Many empirical researches already
stated the differences of male entrepreneurship
compared to those performed by female. They
consistently emphasize non-monetary entrepreneurial
motivations (Walker and Brown, 2004; Buttner and
Moore, 1997), while on the other hand, male shown
that they are more likely to pursue traditional
economic entrepreneurial activity than females. In
other words, females businesses in terms of business
success are less successful compared to those who
were initiated by male (Welter, Smallbone, and
Isakova, 2006). It can be seen from lower sales,
slower growth, and lower profits than male-owned
businesses (Brush et al., 2006). Males considered to
be more interested in pursue traditional economic
entrepreneurial activity than females. While on the
other hand, females are more likely to engage in
social and environmental entrepreneurial activity
than males. Thus, females are more aligned with
social rather than economic goals.
Even though most innovation is directly
associated with technology, several researches have
already defined it as being widely accepted in the
social sciences research. In relation with it, Chell et
al. (2010) observed that ‘social enterprises seek
business solutions to social problems and in order to
do so it is necessary for social enterprises to foster
innovation’. It can be seen here that they social
entrepreneur need to come up with new idea in order
to tackle the problems in their surroundings. Nicholls
(2006) defines social entrepreneurship as ‘innovative
and effective activities that focus on resolving social
market failures and creating opportunities to add
social value systematically by using a range of
organizational formats to maximize social impact
There is some consensus that the creation of social
value is central to both social innovation and social
entrepreneurship (Marshall, 2011). The primary
objective of social enterprises is ‘mission-related
impact’ rather than profitability per se (Dees, 1998).
Thus, to expand social values, one’s need to expand
their coverage so that it will benefited more people
and able to meet social needs. According to Alvord,
Brown, and Letts (2004) there are three scaling
patterns for increasing social value that highly related
with innovation, by expanding coverage, expanding
functions and services to their initial target groups,
and scaling impact (Alvord et al., 2004) or
franchising (Tracey and Jarvis, 2007).
Therefore, in this point there are several social
values that will be broke down in three major
concepts, namely social empowerment, social
benefit, and sustainability. According to Nicholls
(2006), these approaches are quite central in
interpreting the outcomes of these social enterprises,
thus Emerson (2006) stated the needs of ‘blended
return’: the financial (exchange value), the social and
environmental performance (use value).
Another construct is Sustainability, which is a
broad concept that includes both the continuation of
the benefits that result from certain activities or
‘benefit sustainability’ and the ability of the
organization to continue to exist or understood as
‘organizational sustainability’. Thus, in accordance
with sustainability, replicability, and scalability
became important points that cannot be separated
from the concept of social innovation.
2 METHODS
The methods that author use are taken into few steps
of process. In order to capture the phenomenon and
categorize it into a more fitting context-based story,
researcher did some preliminary quantitative surveys
for the theoretical sampling. The questionnaires were
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
88

distributed among 100 female entrepreneurs across
Indonesia. The next step is aim to find out which
informants which already change their profit oriented
businesses into social enterprises, or even has already
initiate their businesses to be a social enterprise from
the first place. Based on the theoretical sampling,
literature reviews, and observation, in regards with
the limitations, there are 6 female social
entrepreneurs that fit as the informants.
The data collection through literature studies, in-
depth interview, observation, and FGD (Deetz, 1996)
is also implemented. By using a mixed method, this
research found out how social innovation bring
female social entrepreneurship in creating social
values by using several case studies. Authors did
some observation on their social enterprises and their
surroundings to find out their problems. Desk reviews
on their secondary data is also seen as important in
order to find out their kinds of innovation as well as
their growth. Based on those data, authors also done
several interviews as well as triangulations by
applying constant comparative checking. The next
part is the data analysis process, which consists of 3
phases (Glaser and Strauss, 2012) of open coding,
axial Coding, and selective Coding. After the
triangulations process, authors build the existing
empirical condition based on the gathered data from
the field.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
According to several in-depth interviews and
observations, there are several things that become the
main starting points on why female creates social
enterprises. Some are moved because they have seen
social and economical problems around them, and
some are moved by their own conditions and then led
to the need to empower others. Nevertheless, some
are seen to be able to capture the social and economic
phenomenon around them and create an enterprise as
a catalyst for changes.
Figure 1: Initial theoretical framework and existing
empirical condition.
Based on the grounded data collection which
involving several female social entrepreneurs, we
may see that there is several other unique and
interesting findings in the field, which may be able,
concluded in social business model later on. There are
3 main clear constructs that considered as important
and generated from the field, namely empowerment,
social benefit, and sustainability. It is stated that
social innovation does creating more social values
within the society, rather than conventional or
traditional innovation (see in figure 1).
4 CONCLUSIONS
Thus, there are need to develop themselves, capture
problems within their surroundings, as well as the
urges based on their beliefs. By using the feminine
management style which is tend to be more assertive,
these female initiators decided to create a business
which is not only profit oriented, but also sustained
by always creating innovation thus may create
empowerment process, social benefit as well as
sustainability.
Social
innovation
Social
values
Empowerment
Social benefit
Sustainability
Social
innovatio
n
Social
values
FEMALE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR
Theoretical Framework
EXISTING EMPIRICAL CONDITION
From Social Innovation to Social Value Creation - Learning from Female Social Entrepreneur Movement in Indonesia
89

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