Social entrepreneurship: theoretical framework

Abstract

This renewed interest in this new concept is based on a set of principles that have conditioned its emergence as a new autonomous discipline in the market rather than as a spin-off from other sciences.  Originally, the term social entrepreneurship refers to a concept of a multiple nature with a dual affiliation. It is indeed the dual perspective of 'entrepreneurship', which refers to business creation and value creation, and 'social' (Mair and Marti, 2006), which refers precisely to a social mission to be carried out, for which a social organisation is required and enjoys the status of a change agent due to the pervasive nature of organisational responsibility. Social entrepreneurship is a form of entrepreneurship that aims to make economic viability and social impact compatible. This phenomenon is attracting increasing attention from policy makers and the general public. The increase in the number of social enterprise start-ups, the development of chairs in business schools devoted to this theme, the multiplicity of social enterprise incubators, and the organisation of conferences and seminars on the development of this concept all testify to the strength of this interest. The notion of social entrepreneurship is polysemous. It was popularised following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 to Mohammed Yunus, the inventor of microcredit. Indeed, there are different schools of thought, each of which conceptualises social entrepreneurship in a different way. This concept therefore covers practices that are as different and varied as their contexts of appearance.  Like any other emerging concept, the definition of social entrepreneurship is not universal, but rather there is a multitude of definitions. In the following, we will clarify what we mean by social entrepreneurship, i.e. its theoretical roots, origin, typology, etc.

JEL Classification : L26

Paper type: Theoretical Research