Women entrepreneurs creating value in a democratic South Africa - Emerging beyond the informal sector

This paper discusses social value creation by South African women and uses emerging frameworks on value creation that reach beyond conventional economic value as lenses to understand the complexity of the country’s context. South Africa’s unique context created the conditions for the emergence of entrepreneurs who see opportunity in social needs spawned by Apartheid. Social value creation began with women exerting influence on the content of the Constitution that enshrine legal and property rights for women. Using illustrative case studies of four employer firms across a range of industries, this research shows how women created new institutional forms by seizing on regulatory system changes to build investment companies for financial inclusion. At the cognitive and the normative levels, women entrepreneurs in our cases demonstrate the agency and choice required to create opportunities for previously disadvantaged groups by offering jobs in hospitality, digital services, education, and facilities management.