Social Entrepreneurship Conceptual Approaches

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Peer Reviewed

This is a peer-reviewed entry published in Encyclopedia Journal, full entry can be found at 10.3390/encyclopedia2020066

Social entrepreneurship defines organizations or initiatives that, by producing and/or transacting goods or services, seek new solutions to persistent social problems, thus generating high social value. In other words, that deliberately subject their economic strategy to social priorities and place the social mission at the center of their concerns. Such social priorities include poverty, unemployment, education, health, local development, or the environment. Outside this common base, the aggregation of other characteristics or delimitations has given rise to conceptual fuzziness, namely, as to the organizational forms to be adopted (restricted to non-profit organizations or open to for-profit businesses with clear social purposes) and the weight of the social dimension in SE. Another manifestation of conceptual malleability emerges from the coexistence of different schools of thought. On the opposite side, one notes the narrowing of the concept, which mainly derives from a Westernized vision and still pays little attention to the contributions from developing countries. In addition to analyzing these topics, the current entry points out some recommendations regarding the deepening of scientific research in this field.

entrepreneurship social entrepreneurship schools of thought social enterprise social problems social transformation social economy

Although relatively new, the phenomenon (concept and practice) of social entrepreneurship (SE) has been attracting growing interest and support. The concept originated in the United States and quickly spread to other Anglo-Saxon countries. More recently, and alongside some expressions of interest detected in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, in Europe initiatives to promote social entrepreneurship have multiplied: mobilization of civil society, specialized training, identification of good practices, congresses and thematic seminars, academic research, and even growing attention from the European Union itself.

Regarding research, the various literature reviews on SE ^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] show a considerable increase in scientific production in this field, with research coming from various scientific areas and multiple geographies. It is an extremely current research field characterized by a very slow but constant trend, which began to have some expression in the 1980s and 1990s ^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10], but above all has registered a significant boom in scientific production during the last decade ^[11]^[12]. While giving visibility to and deepening the concept of SE, the heterogeneity of contributions ^[13] has also contributed to the fact that a relatively universal concept of what should be understood by SE has not yet been stabilized ^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]. When talking about SE, it has become clear that we speak of organizations or initiatives that, by producing and/or transacting goods or services, generate high social value ^[18]—that is, that deliberately submit their economic strategy to social priorities and place the social mission at the center of their concerns. In this equation, the social mission is the “compass” that guides economic and management choices. Outside this common basis, the aggregation of other characteristics or delimitations has given rise to multiple definitions and different schools of thought, which vary according to the authors and the contexts in which they are pronounced.

This conceptual malleability can be observed in the way that, for example, some authors consider that the pursuit of the social objectives by a social venture necessarily involves the adoption of democratic organizational models (participatory dynamics, deliberative culture, broad diffusion of decision rights or shared ownership) ^[19], and that this culture is essentially rooted in non-profit organizations, which are therefore more apt to being social enterprises. Meanwhile, other views argue that for a social enterprise to be viable, it must adopt a business-like behavior and be innovative and competitive in its field, and even that social goals can be included but not assumed as priorities in the organizations’ activities. On the other hand, it can also be seen that the notion of SE is still very much influenced by a Westernized vision that pays little attention to the contributions from developing countries. Similarly, some definitions, placing the individual entrepreneur at the center of the action, give insufficient value to the role that context and collectives, whether organizations, groups, or communities, play in the emergence and consolidation of a social initiative.

These are just a few examples of the conceptual fuzziness that characterizes the understanding of what a social enterprise is (and can be). The observation and description of the different conceptual approaches that characterize the field of SE is one of the main objectives of this entry. Its achievement is associated with the pursuit of another objective, which even precedes the previous one: that of presenting, from the historical and scientific point of view, the genesis and evolution of the SE concept. Among other aspects, it is important to clarify the transition from the concept of entrepreneur to that of social entrepreneur, and then to pay special attention to how different schools of thought have been built around this concept, reflecting different paths and contexts. Finally, we believe it is pertinent to deepen the analysis on the importance of the social dimension in the context of SE and, furthermore, to perspective paths for the deepening of research and the consolidation of the SE concept.

References

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Battilana, J.; Fuerstein, M.; Lee, M. New Prospects for Organizational Democracy?: How the Joint Pursuit of Social and Financial Goals Challenges Traditional Organizational Designs. In Capitalism Beyond Mutuality?: Perspectives Integrating Philosophy and Social Science; Rangan, S., Ed.; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 2018; pp. 256–288.

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Alcides Monteiro

José Carlos Sánchez-García

Brizeida Hernández Sánchez

Giuseppina Maria Cardella

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Online Date: 25 May 2022

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