Necessity Social Enterprises: Community Resilience Strategies of “Kitchen Rebellions”

Entrepreneurship out of economic necessity—sometimes combined with addressing social and environmental challenges—is attracting growing attention. However, welfare states show a phenomenon unaccounted for in both necessity and social entrepreneurship literatures, conceptualized here as necessity social enterprise. We collect ethnographic data from individuals starting a social venture (“from their kitchen”) driven by problems in the private sphere. We show how over time the emphasis of these ventures moves from necessity to social transformation at the community level. Our abductive analysis suggests that they enact rebellious sentiments to fulfil self‐actualization needs and develop specific strategies for community resilience. We develop a framework capturing these dimensions and discuss community resilience strategies at individual, organizational and community levels.