Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is viewed by its proponents as a potentially sustainable solution to social and environmental challenges not adequately addressed by governments, the traditional non-governmental sector, or the market mechanism. While sustainability is proclaimed as one of the strengths of this organizational form, it remains largely unexplored. In organizational settings, stakeholder analysis can not only provide an understanding of how stakeholders perceive the organization but could also be used as a mirror of organizational expression towards others. This article reports on the way in which themes associated with sustainable development manifest in the stakeholder perceptions and priorities of social enterprises based on interpretation of seventeen interviews with leaders of social enterprises in South Africa and a review of social enterprise literature. The interpretation concludes that organizational survival is central to the perceptions and priorities of social enterprises, and that the way social entrepreneurs perceive the different strands of sustainability shows a misalignment focus.