Managing the conflict between social and economic value : the case of the Amadlelo Project

The objective of the study was to investigate the role that social entrepreneurship can play in rural economic development. This objective was achieved by answering the following secondary research questions: How do for-profit social ventures create social value? How sustainable are the for-profit social venture projects in rural areas? What are the challenges facing for-profit social ventures in scaling up their projects? What metrics can be used to monitor and measure social ventures? What are the leadership traits of social entrepreneurs? The point of departure in resolving the objective of this study was to do an analysis of the available literature relevant to the research. The literature review covered was on rural development and social entrepreneurship. Rural development literature covered issues specific to rural development such as the history of rural development in South Africa, land redistribution and restitution and food security, amongst others. Social entrepreneurship literature dealt with the following issues: charity organisations, corporate social responsibility, for-profit social ventures and social capital, amongst others. The researcher used a multiple case study method to resolve the objective of the research. It was conducted with five projects of Amadlelo Agri in the Eastern Cape. An empirical and qualitative study was conducted with forty one employees and six senior managers of Amadlelo Agri respectively in order to test the theory. The results of the empirical and qualitative study were compared to the reviewed literature in order to ascertain whether Amadlelo Agri complied with the findings of the literature review. The research concludes that for-profit social ventures can play a very important role in rural development by turning latent community assets into profitable businesses for the benefit of the community; reducing unemployment and poverty; bringing financial and other resources needed in rural communities and by providing skills development