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Levels of unemployment and environmental challenges make social entrepreneurship and social enterprise very important for the sustainability of society. Higher education has played a fundamental role in driving entrepreneurship and innovation in local, national, regional, and global contexts. The authors of this article explore the state of the legislative framework in Ghana, as well as social enterprise education, stakeholder engagement, models and challenges. The methodology applied for this paper is concept mapping, enabling the critical exploration of the relevance of social enterprise in the context of higher education, and demonstrating how it could practically serve as a panacea to rising youth unemployment. This research concludes by making a case for including social enterprise in the higher education curriculum.

Although leadership style plays a critical role in succession planning practices and succession success, empirical examination of its influence on the relationship between succession planning and success of succession in family-owned SMEs has received little attention in the literature. This study examines the interactive effect of the various types of leadership styles as internal branding mechanisms on the success of succession in family-owned SMEs.

We analyzed the data from 124 managers/CEOs of family-owned SMEs that have at least transitioned beyond one incumbent leader using SPSS Version 29.

The result shows that succession planning practices are positively associated with succession success. It further shows that leaders who brand themselves as transformational and participatory leaders have a positive, significant interactive effect on the relationship between succession planning activities and succession success. The positive relationship between succession planning activities and succession success is dampened when managers rely too heavily on a transactional leadership style. Both autocratic and laissez-faire types of leadership have no significant interactive effect on the relationship.

The study is distinct from past studies. Until now, knowledge about the interactive effect of the various leadership styles as internal branding mechanisms on the relationship between succession planning practices like coaching, mentoring, job rotation and training and succession success in family-owned businesses remains limited. Theoretically, the study is pioneering in the sense that it is among the first studies that extends internal branding to succession planning in family-owned businesses. The study enlightened our understanding of how the various leadership styles and internal branding mechanism influence succession success in family-owned SMEs.