https://tede.vgtu.lt/index.php/BMEE <p>Journal Business, Management and Economics Engineering publishes original research on economics, business and management. <a href="https://journals.vilniustech.lt/index.php/BMEE/about">More information ...</a></p> Vilnius Gediminas Technical University en-US Business, Management and Economics Engineering 2669-2481 <p>Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms</p> <ul> <li class="show">that this article contains no violation of any existing copyright or other third party right or any material of a libelous, confidential, or otherwise unlawful nature, and that I will indemnify and keep indemnified the Editor and THE PUBLISHER against all claims and expenses (including legal costs and expenses) arising from any breach of this warranty and the other warranties on my behalf in this agreement;</li> <li class="show">that I have obtained permission for and acknowledged the source of any illustrations, diagrams or other material included in the article of which I am not the copyright owner.</li> <li class="show">on behalf of any co-authors, I agree to this work being published in Business, Management and Education&nbsp;journal as Open Access, and licenced under a Creative Commons Licence, 4.0 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode</a>. This licence allows for the fullest distribution and re-use of the work for the benefit of scholarly information.</li> </ul> <p>For authors that are not copyright owners in the work (for example government employees), please <a href="mailto:%20journals@vilniustech.lt">contact VILNIUS TECH </a>to make alternative agreements.</p> https://tede.vgtu.lt/index.php/BMEE/article/view/21468 <p><em>Purpose</em> – The goal of this research was to identify the need for networking competencies in social enterprises rated by the managerial personnel of social enterprises and academic staff of universities in Latvia.</p> <p><em>Research methodology</em> – A survey among representatives of Latvian social enterprises and academic staff of Latvian higher education institutions (HEIs) was conducted. The data was processed by means of average ranking, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and one-way-ANOVA test.</p> <p><em>Findings</em> – The analysis of the results of Latvian survey revealed that: 1) social enterprise per- sonnel and university academic staff rated the role of networking competencies in social enterprise performance differently; 2) social enterprises rated cooperation with local governments higher and with industry associations as less important than the group of university academic staff.</p> <p><em>Research limitations</em> – The research is limited to the analysis of only networking competencies.</p> <p><em>Practical implications</em> – The research results contribute to the institutional framework for the social entrepreneurship ecosystem through recommendations to universities in creating training programmes of social entrepreneurship competencies.</p> <p><em>Originality</em>/<em>Value</em> – The conducted empirical study is the first study of its kind in the Latvian social enterprise ecosystem, and it offers unique data that can be used for planning the development of networking competencies.</p> Aija Sannikova Jelena Titko Janis Kudins Copyright (c) 2025 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 2025-01-14 2025-01-14 23 1 1–13 1–13 10.3846/bmee.2025.21468