Legal Status and Entrepreneurial Profiles in Moroccan Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Research on Moroccan social entrepreneurship has so far focused on individual motivational factors, typically framed through the push/pull model. This article instead asks how the organizational form chosen (cooperative, limited liability company, association, sole proprietorship) relates to entrepreneurial profile. Drawing on Zahra et al.'s (2009) typology of the social bricoleur, social constructionist, and social engineer, we conduct a secondary analysis, grounded in the full interview transcripts, of data from twenty Moroccan social entrepreneurs, gathered through non-probabilistic theoretical sampling and classified by a single coder using an explicit operationalization grid. The results, descriptive and configurational rather than inferential given the sample size and the non-probabilistic nature of the sampling strategy, show a marked structuring: cooperatives mostly host social bricoleurs, locally rooted and less credentialed; the limited liability company is the form favoured by social constructionists, younger and more highly educated; the rare social engineers in the sample are found in associations or limited liability companies. These findings frame legal-form choice as a legitimation strategy rather than a mere administrative constraint, and open avenues for research on institutional isomorphism in social entrepreneurship in the Global South.

Classification JEL: L31

Paper type: Empirical Research