Work Motivation in Social Enterprises : A Study in Gävle Sweden

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that motivate people to work for social enterprises and how social enterprise can attract qualified employees.Method: Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used. The qualitative data were collected by interviews with 7 participants from 4 social enterprises in Gävleborg of Sweden. We gathered the quantitative data via questionnaires which were collected from 38 MBA students in University of Gävle.Result and Conclusions: By comparison between the expectation of MBA students and reality of the social enterprises, we found promotion opportunities and work environment are the factors which restrict social enterprises to attract employees and motivate people.Suggestion for further studies: Based on the exiting researches and our experiences, most studies focus on the financial problems and entrepreneur problems of the social enterprises. We suggest that further research could investigate the other aspects of social enterprises such as management problems or network of social enterprise.Contribution of the thesis: In this study, the most important factor to motivate students work for social enterprises are pointed out as work environment and we also give suggestions to social enterprises to improve their attractiveness, such as improving the promotion chance for employees