Social Entrepreneurship and the Use of Sustainable Business Models in Developing Countries and the Need for Coherent Intersectoral Collaboration: The Case of North Macedonia

In this paper, we explore the intersectoral collaboration for social entrepreneurship development - a grey area that lacks critical investigation. Social entrepreneurship is directly connected to sustainable business models, fostering partnerships and collaboration while alleviating and mitigating societal issues. Social enterprises are implementing sustainable business models in their operations on the market to achieve the economic and societal impact they are striving for. Social entrepreneurship has intersectoral influence, and consequently, intersectoral collaboration is one of the prerequisites for developing social entrepreneurship that alleviates and mitigates the already made adverse effects on the economy, society and environment. We portray the case of North Macedonia, a developing country, at the beginning of the social entrepreneurship and sustainable business models development through the experience and practice of four pioneering social enterprises. We investigate ‘To what extent collaboration across sectors contributes to social entrepreneurship and sustainable business model development?’. The evidence shows that coherent collaboration across sectors is vital for the development of SE. The evidence also shows that in North Macedonia currently, there is an incoherent system of support. The need for coherent moving forward across sectors and levels is highlighted as key to enable effective and efficient social enterprises to deliver on their objectives.