Challenges in a Social Enterprise from the Case of a Social Enterprise in Slovenia

There are a growing number of studies exploring the capacity building and business aspects of social enterprise in an attempt to increase the understanding of business sustainability and resilience in the social economy. However, little is known about how social enterprises or social entrepreneurs emerging from notfor-profit sectors have faced challenges. In this study, we focus on a hospitality social enterprise founded by NGO workers in Slovenia as a single case study. We investigated challenges that a social entrepreneur and her team faced when pursuing sustainable social business. We uncovered several challenges at different levels, which existing studies have neglected. We found two organisational level challenges, such as managing the dual purpose of a social enterprise and absence of a business strategy, and two HRM level challenges, such as people management and leadership issue. This study can pave a path for future studies to focus on various challenges and even some resolutions.