Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight

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Abstract

Social entrepreneurship, as a practice and a field for scholarly investigation, provides a unique opportunity to challenge, question, and rethink concepts and assumptions from different fields of management and business research. This article puts forward a view of social entrepreneurship as a process that catalyzes social change and addresses important social needs in a way that is not dominated by direct financial benefits for the entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship is seen as differing from other forms of entrepreneurship in the relatively higher priority given to promoting social value and development versus capturing economic value. To stimulate future research the authors introduce the concept of embeddedness as a nexus between theoretical perspectives for the study of social entrepreneurship.

Introduction

Social entrepreneurship as a practice that integrates economic and social value creation has a long heritage and a global presence. The global efforts of Ashoka, founded by Bill Drayton in 1980, to provide seed funding for entrepreneurs with a social vision (http://www.ashoka.org); the multiple activities of Grameen Bank, established by Professor Muhammad Yunus in 1976 to eradicate poverty and empower women in Bangladesh (http://www.grameen-info.org); or the use of arts to develop community programs in Pittsburgh by the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, founded by Bill Strickland in 1968 (http://www.manchesterguild.org): these are all contemporary manifestations of a phenomenon that finds its historical precedents in, among other things, the values of Victorian Liberalism.

While entrepreneurial phenomena aimed at economic development have received a great amount of scholarly attention, entrepreneurship as a process to foster social progress has only recently attracted the interest of researchers (Alvord, Brown, & Letts, 2004; Dees & Elias, 1998). Similar to entrepreneurship in its early days as a field of scholarly endeavor, social entrepreneurship research is still largely phenomenon-driven. Existing most studies are typically based on anecdotal evidence or case studies, applying diverse research designs and methods and introducing insights from other disciplines. Like entrepreneurship, which even today lacks a unifying paradigm (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000), the term “social entrepreneurship” has taken on a variety of meanings (Dees, 1998).

The concept of social entrepreneurship is still poorly defined and its boundaries to other fields of study remain fuzzy. While to some this may appear to be a problem, we see it as a unique opportunity for researchers from different fields and disciplines, such as entrepreneurship, sociology and organizational theory, to challenge and rethink central concepts and assumptions.

This article aims to unveil the core of social entrepreneurship in order to guide future research. Our basic premise is that if social entrepreneurship is to become a structured field of research, an effort must be made to clarify and define key concepts and constructs. To this end, we draw on practical examples of social entrepreneurship to identify and elaborate on the essential components.

While the view of social entrepreneurship put forward in this article is far from complete, we see it as an important first step to enhance our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon and facilitate future research. We contend, with Weick (1995), that a good theory explains, predicts, and delights. This article represents an effort to stimulate research that goes beyond descriptive studies to realize the promise of social entrepreneurship as a source of explanation, prediction, and delight.

The article is organized as follows. First, we examine the meaning of the terms “social” and “entrepreneurship”, which constitute the essence of the phenomenon. We offer a working definition of social entrepreneurship and elaborate on its distinctive characteristics. In a next step, we portray social entrepreneurship as a fascinating playground for different theories and literatures. In particular, we build on sociology and organizational theory and look at how structuration theory and theories on institutional entrepreneurs, social capital and social movements, may contribute to the understanding of social entrepreneurship. We conclude with some questions for future research that could define the future of social entrepreneurship as an area of research.

Section snippets

On the concept of social entrepreneurship

The concept of social entrepreneurship means different things to different people and researchers (Dees, 1998). One group of researchers refers to social entrepreneurship as not-for-profit initiatives in search of alternative funding strategies, or management schemes to create social value (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skiller, 2003; Boschee, 1998). A second group of researchers understands it as the socially responsible practice of commercial businesses engaged in cross-sector partnerships (Sagawa

Perspectives for studying social entrepreneurship

The variegated nature and multiple expressions of social entrepreneurship make it a fascinating playground for different perspectives and literatures. A common feature of emergent fields of research is the absence of clear theoretical boundaries and the need to coalesce thinking from other disciplines. Undoubtedly, this involves the risk that social entrepreneurship “may never gain the consensus and legitimacy that academics seek and may be viewed merely as a venue in which other disciplinary

Final remarks

The objective of this article has been to arouse academic curiosity for social entrepreneurship. We consider social entrepreneurship to be a particularly exciting and fruitful research topic and it is our hope that this article will bring us a step closer toward legitimizing and inspiring social entrepreneurship as a means to create social and economic value and as a field of research.

The working definition of social entrepreneurship put forward in this article is intended to facilitate a more

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