Narrating Career in Social Entrepreneurship: Experiences of Social Entrepreneurs

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study is to contribute to the scholarship on career success within the social entrepreneurship context. Based on the career accounts of eighteen social entrepreneurs in Malaysia, the study’s findings provide a nuanced perspective of the Career Success Framework and explicate career success for social entrepreneurs as multifaceted across personal and social goals. The findings provide nuance to how the four broad dimensions of the Career Success Framework (material concerns, social relations, learning and pursuing one’s own projects) are experienced and perceived in the social entrepreneurship context. The emergent career success framework of social entrepreneurs suggests that perceived career success is appraised with nine sub-dimensions captured within the broad dimensions of the Career Success Framework in ways that challenge taken-for-granted assumptions in careers research, while also highlighting the tensions social entrepreneurs face.