Prioritization of Factors Affecting Social Entrepreneurship in Iran from the Viewpoint of Social Activists

Social entrepreneurship is defined as an innovative activity which creates social value. It can be utilized within or across the nonprofit or business sectors. Today, social entrepreneurship is considered an effective and sustainable method for social and economic development and attracts the attention of various start a in the society; this concept will demand particular contemplation in Iran. This research is based on Austin’s social entrepreneurship framework, and attempts to find the answer to the two following questions:• what are the influential factors in social entrepreneurship development in Iran?• what is the prioritization of such influential factors?The statistical population in this research was made up of 108 people chosen from among social activists including, founders or managers, employees, staff members, volunteers and advocates who were active in social ventures in business or nonprofit sectors. A questionnaire was used as the main tool for data gathering. In order to analyze the results, different statistical tests including Kolmogorrov-SmirnovTest, T-Test and Friedman Test were used respectively. The outputs of the research indicate that all of the five factors stated in the conceptual model play important roles in developing social entrepreneurship in Iran with prioritization of: people, SVP, context, opportunity and capital.