Social Entrepreneurship and Broader Theories: Shedding New Light on the “Bigger Picture”

This article documents the results of a research workshop bringing together six perspectives on social entrepreneurship. The idea was to challenge existing concepts of the economy, the firm, and entrepreneurship in order to shed new light on social entrepreneurship and on our existing theoretical frameworks. The first two contributions use a macro-perspective and discuss the notion of adaptive societies and the tragedies of disharmonization, respectively. Taking a management perspective, the next two focus on the limits of conventional assumptions in management theory, particularly human capital theory and resource-based view. The final two contributions follow an entrepreneurship perspective highlighting the usefulness of mobilization theory and the business model lens to social entrepreneurship. Despite this diversity, all contributions share the fact that they challenge narrow definitions of the unit of analysis in social entrepreneurship; they illustrate the aspect of social embeddedness, and they argue for an open-but-disciplined diversity of theories in social entrepreneurship research

A Corporate Social Entrepreneurship Approach to Market-Based Poverty Reduction

In this article, we aim to conceptualize a market-based approach to poverty reduction from a corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE) perspective. Specifically, we describe some market-based initiatives at the base of the economic pyramid and relate them to the social entrepreneurship literature. We refer to the entrepreneurial activities of multinational corporations that create social value as CSE. We then conceptualize CSE according to the corporate entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship domains and shed light on how corporations can implement CSE. Finally, by reviewing relevant literature, we propose some of the factors that can stimulate CSE in organizations and some of the benefits companies can gain by implementing CSE

Mystify me: Coke, terror and the symbolic immortality boost

A panel on “Marketing as Mystification” convened at the 2011 Academy of Marketing conference in Liverpool. Ideas from the Liverpool event were supplemented by commentaries from selected other authors. Each commentary explores the aspects of “mystification” observable in marketing discourses and practices. In what follows, Laufer interprets marketing mystification as modern form of sophism, Dholakia and Firat discuss mystifying ways that inequality is marketed, Varman analyzes the perversion and mystification of “development” via neoliberal marketing of “social entrepreneurship,” Mikkonen explores mystifying marketing representations of gays and lesbians, and Freund and Jacobi present a fascinating interpretation of how Coca-Cola advertising mystically reassures us that our difficult, dangerous lifeworld is actually quite hunky-dory. </jats:p

An exploratory study on the potential of social enterprise to act as the institutional glue of network governance

This study combines two topics of contemporary salience for public administration: social enterprise and governance networks. While operating at different levels, both are institutions which attempt to draw together the three pillars of state, market, and civil society. Nevertheless, the respective literatures focus on particular aspects of the three pillars. We connect the two concepts and suggest that some social enterprises can act as the institutional glue of networks due to their ability to benefit organizations in each of the three sectors. This requires social enterprises to have the managerial capacity to diffuse social know-how, and is facilitated by the trust of other organizations and a supportive policy framework. The links are explicated at the conceptual level before providing evidence from South Korea and the UK. Finally, research propositions are offered, which suggest new avenues for future research

Grass burning under our feet: Indigenous enterprise development in a political economy of whiteness

In this article we discuss some of our findings from two research projects that explore opportunities for Indigenous enterprise development in remote locations in Northern and Central Australia. Based on a series of focus groups and in-depth interviews with Indigenous community leaders, Traditional Owners, government officials, Land Council officials and other stakeholders, we discuss barriers to economic development faced by Indigenous communities in remote regions. We argue that many of these barriers are the material effects of discursive practices of ‘whiteness’ in the political economy. We discuss the relationships between institutions and Indigenous communities that constitute the Indigenous political economy and argue that these relationships are informed by discursive practices of whiteness and colonial-capitalist relations of power. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for management learning and public policy

Defining the 'Social' in 'Social Entrepreneurship': Altruism and Entrepreneurship

Abstract. What is social entrepreneurship? In, particular, what’s so social about it? Understanding what social entrepreneurship is enables researchers to study the phenomenon and policy-makers to design measures to encourage it. However, such an understanding is lacking partly because there is no universally accepted definition of entrepreneurship as yet. In this paper, we suggest a definition of social entrepreneurship that intuitively accords with what is generally accepted as entrepreneurship and that captures the way in which entrepreneurship may be altruistic. Based on this we provide a taxonomy of social entrepreneurship and identify a number of real cases from Asia illustrating the different forms it could take. Keywords: social entrepreneurship, definition, taxonomy, altruism Social entrepreneurship is a concept that has captured the imagination of many researchers and policy-makers in recent years. Social entrepreneurship suggests that entrepreneurship may be aimed at benefiting society rather than merely maximising individual profits. It appears to promise an altruistic form of capitalism that does not evaluate all human activities in business terms. It enables a bridge to be built between enterprise and benevolence (Roberts and Woods, 2005). The history of the term ‘social entrepreneurship ’ can be traced to the publication of a Demos thinktank report entitled The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur (Leadbeater, 1997) in the United Kingdom and probably a little earlier in the United States to the publication of New Social Entrepreneurs by the Roberts Foundation (Emerson and Twerksy, 1996). Prior to this, some of the activities under the rubric of social entrepreneurship were either termed ‘community development ’ or those in ‘social purpose organizations’. There is considerable use of the term in popular literature although academic literature on it is thin (Taylor, Hobbs, Nilsson, O’Halloran and Preisser, 2000). Recent interest saw a call for papers for a special issue on social entrepreneurship (Honig an