Evaluating the key success factors of social business hubs in the Middle East

Abstract

Social business hubs play an important role in facilitating social innovation and support social entrepreneurs to deliver social benefits to the wider community. This paper aims to firstly identify and evaluate the key success factors of social business hubs in the Middle East with the focus on Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, secondly, identify what successful social hubs offer, and thirdly, identify the challenges facing social business hubs in the region. In-depth interviews with eight social business hub managers were conducted using a pre-designed questionnaire. The findings were interesting and meaningful and show the impact severity of the COVID-19 pandemic on the infrastructure of the social business hubs. Networking and collaboration seem to be the predominant success factor for social business hubs. Finally, we observe that social business hubs in the region are facing many challenges; the main two are lack of government support and funding issues.