Current trends have shown that social entrepreneurship is identified as the Key driver of the third sector as well as the public and private sector. Social enterprises play a critical role in social-economic development. Social innovation is one of the most important aspects of social entrepreneurship as it enhances the degree to which an enterprise effectively responds to emerging opportunities and challenges in the market. The field of social innovation turns critical societal problems into opportunities by actively involving the community actors. This paper is an analysis of how social innovations influence social enterprises in Nairobi County of Kenya. Cross -sectional design is used. The target population comprises all the registered social enterprises in Nairobi County. A simple random sampling technique was used to draw a sample of 107 registered social enterprises in the County. A self-administered questionnaire was used as the main data collection instruments. A pilot study was conducted to test validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Data was then analyzed both descriptively and using inferential statistics. One-way analysis of variance was used to test the hypotheses. Both Pearson’s product moment correlation and Chi-square were also used to test for significant associations between social innovations and performance of Social enterprises.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Performance, Social Enterprise, Social Innovation
