Abstract
This research empirically examines the role of the Romanian public administration in supporting social entrepreneurship initiatives to address local community development challenges. Data were collected from a survey of 145 representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working closely with Romanian public administration institutions involved in social entrepreneurship projects. Increased awareness of social problems and publicly funded incentives enable social entrepreneurs to develop social projects. Descriptive statistical analyses were used to test several hypotheses based on the theoretical background. According to the analyses, high involvement of local public administrations in social entrepreneurship initiatives is strongly correlated with the importance of social projects for local communities and with citizens’ positive perception of the managers of public institutions. High involvement of local public administrations is moderately correlated with citizens’ interest in supporting social causes and projects that add value to the community. It is also weakly correlated with the interest of private companies in co-financing such projects through public–private partnerships (PPPs) and the capacity of public institutions to attract non-reimbursable European funds for this purpose. This research contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by illustrating the role of public institutions in strengthening relationships with private companies and NGOs to develop social projects.