Abstract
The aim of the present study is to level and relate the factors of social entrepreneurship policies in Imam Khomeini Relief Committeee. The research method is developmental-applicable in terms of its purpose, and qualitative in terms of its implementation method. The statistical population of this study includes 17 university professors, social entrepreneurship experts, and senior managers of Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, selected by purposive sampling. In order to level and examine the relationship between the factors of social entrepreneurship policies, the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and MICMAC methods were used. Based on the results of the final model of relationships between the organizing themes, the final model of social entrepreneurship policies consists of four levels. At the first level, the theme of "promoting social justice and reducing poverty" is placed, which receives the greatest impact from other themes of the study. At the second level of the model, six themes are included: “Improving entrepreneurial capacities in the organization”, “Taking advantage of economic activity”, “Service-oriented human resources”, “Social responsibility of the relief committee”, “Creating organizational interactions” and “Improving the entrepreneurial performance of the organization”. The themes included at the second level influence the themes at the first level and are influenced by the themes at the third level. At the third level, two themes are included: “Creating an entrepreneurial organizational culture” and “Sustainable value creation in the organization”, and at the fourth level, the theme is “Drawing a vision supporting social entrepreneurship”, which has the greatest impact on the themes at the lower levels.
Introduction
Today, entrepreneurial activities have been proposed as a key axis of innovation, job creation and economic growth in the world. Among them, social entrepreneurship is a type of entrepreneurship that has recently attracted the attention of researchers. The goal of social entrepreneurship is to better understand the needs of society by entrepreneurs and also to create social responsibility towards society. High levels of social entrepreneurship can be a characteristic of a healthy society. Therefore, the need for human resource innovation processes and investment in social entrepreneurship is not endless (Davoudirad et al., 2021). Social entrepreneurship refers to a process in which entrepreneurs build or change institutions at the local community level and act by expressing useful solutions to reduce social problems such as poverty, illiteracy, environmental degradation, etc. (Viswanath et al., 2024). Due to its social nature, social entrepreneurship can have many impacts on societies; among other things, it can provide solutions to a wide range of social problems and as an effective mechanism for generating economic, social and environmental value. Social entrepreneurship has always been associated with social change processes (Gupta et al., 2020). Social entrepreneurs also act as agents of social change. They take advantage of opportunities that are ignored by others to grow society through new approaches and create solutions to improve the current situation (Haugh & Talwar, 2014). Just as an entrepreneur can create a new industry, a social entrepreneur can also find a new solution to social problems and implement it in the best possible way (Fazelipour et al., 2024). In this regard, the main research question is posed as follows: What is the leveling and relationship between the factors of social entrepreneurship policies in the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee organization?
Theoretical Framework
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a process that involves recognizing, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities to introduce new products, access new markets, or raw materials by organizing efforts that did not previously exist (Simeone et al., 2018).
Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship is a process in which individuals, groups, and social sectors voluntarily work to create value from unused social assets and recognize the opportunities arising from them (Davoudirad et al., 2021).
Doozandeh Ziabari et al. (2025) examined the presentation of a social entrepreneurship model in rural tourism development in tourism target villages in Gilan province. The results showed that traditional tourism entrepreneurship follows a capitalist approach, is highly profit-oriented, and ignores the social aspects of doing business, which may in turn cause further harm to already disadvantaged communities. Social entrepreneurship in tourism, referred to here as tourism social entrepreneurship, is positioned as a market-based approach to address various social problems through tourism entrepreneurship.
Viswanath et al. (2024) conducted a study titled Social Entrepreneurship Opportunity Recognition among Higher Education Students: Scale Development and Validation. According to the results of the study, a 24-item scale was developed in this study, with six factors measuring the motivational factors influencing opportunity recognition in social entrepreneurship: life experiences, social awareness, social inclination, community development, institutional gaps, and natural choice for a meaningful career.
Research Methodology
The research method is developmental-applicable in terms of its purpose, and qualitative in terms of its implementation method. The statistical population of this study includes 17 university professors, social entrepreneurship experts, and senior managers of the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, selected through purposive sampling.
Research Findings
In order to classify and examine the relationship between the factors of social entrepreneurship policies, the interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and MICMAC methods were used. Based on the results of the final model of relationships between organizing themes, the final model of social entrepreneurship policies consists of four levels. At the first level, the theme of "promoting social justice and reducing poverty" is placed, which receives the greatest impact from other research themes. At the second level of the model, six themes are included: “Improving entrepreneurial capacities in the organization”, “Utilizing economic activity”, “Service-oriented human resources”, “Social responsibility of the Relief Committee”, “Creating organizational interactions” and “Improving the entrepreneurial performance of the organization”. The themes included at the second level influence the themes at the first level and are influenced by the themes at the third level. At the third level, two themes are included: “Creating an entrepreneurial organizational culture” and “Sustainable value creation in the organization”; and at the fourth level, the theme is “Drawing a supportive vision for social entrepreneurship”, which has the greatest impact on the themes at the lower levels.
Conclusion
The present study was conducted with the aim of classifying and relating the factors of social entrepreneurship policies in the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee. The results of this finding are consistent with the results of the research of Doozandeh Ziabari et al. (2025), Viswanath et al. (2024), Maziriri et al. (2024), Jafarinasab et al. (2023), Khalili Khezrabadi & Hassani (2023), Cortes & Lee (2021), Hoseini et al. (2022), Safari & Mooghali (2022), Nourpour et al. (2023), Mouseli et al. (2020), and Fazelipour et al. (2024). In the study of Safari & Mooghali (2022), the research findings showed that the social entrepreneurship model in non-governmental organizations includes seven dimensions of flexible structure, entrepreneurial culture, social value creation, entrepreneurial strategies, community-oriented leadership, social service-oriented employees, and innovative processes.
According to the research results, the following suggestions were made:

Developing an innovative and knowledge-based jobs document as a top-level document in the relief committee (given the missions and position of this institution in the development of the innovative and knowledge-based jobs ecosystem(
It is suggested that employees be sensitive to problems, incidents, and events that occur in the workplace by increasing their common understanding. The greater this sensitivity and commitment of employees, the more sensitive employees become in solving them, leading to better implementation of the organization's social policy.