Description

With the dawn of democracy in South Africa 1994, there was an emerging and exponentially accelerating force and expectation for societal and organisational change. In stark contrast, twenty years later, the economy is going in the direction where the SA’s economic growth outlook is increasingly negative. Recognising that the creation of jobs is one of the three key services that Government needs to provide over and above addressing poverty and inequality, the government has motivated members of communities to start their own cooperative businesses. The investigation focuses on social entrepreneurship, with specific reference to cooperatives. Social entrepreneurs are not business entrepreneurs but people who lead to bring about new community solutions, frequently working cooperatively through groups or organisations. The study is located in three provinces: Eastern Cape, that once experienced government failures, and two provinces, KZN and Gauteng, that appear to have succeeded in their cooperative initiatives. The investigation joins an ongoing academic conversation that has been ‘talking’ about social entrepreneurship, particularly cooperatives, in the context of provision of school nutrition services.
The aim of the study is to explore and describe the collaborative role of social entrepreneurs in the value chain of provision of school nutrition services in schools within developing economies. The ecological systems theory of development is the primary theory used for the analysis of data in this study, augmented by the insights gained from resource dependence theory and public choice theory. The study uses a qualitatively interpretive, exploratory-descriptive case study research design with the data collection tool being focus groups. The samples of respondents included registered cooperatives/social entrepreneurs and government officials responsible for the school nutrition services programme.
The focus groups transcripts were analysed using Nvivo 7. The themes that emerged were grouped into three categories: transformation, innovation and sustainability. Arising from the analysis, a cooperative working group model was developed. iv

Recommendations were made for cooperatives, bureaucrats, officials and other stakeholders. These recommendations focused on practical suggestions for how to ensure transformation, sustainability and innovation of cooperatives involved in providing school nutrition services.