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Social Entrepreneurship: Definitions, Drivers and Challenges

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Social Entrepreneurship and Social Business

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Learning goals

Upon completing this chapter, you should be able to accomplish the following:

  • Explain the three pillars of social entrepreneurship.

  • Explain how social entrepreneurship can be differentiated from other related concepts such as the third sector (or the social economy), social business, social innovation and corporate social responsibility.

  • List and describe some of the drivers of social responsibility and apply/adapt them to your own context.

  • Explain why measuring social entrepreneurship is difficult; provide some figures/ evidence from initiatives you know of.

  • Identify and characterize socially entrepreneurial initiatives in terms of definitions, drivers, size and key challenges.

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Further Reading

  1. Austin, J., Stevenson, H. and Wei-Skillern, J. (2006b), "Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same, Different, or Both?", in Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 1–22 .

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  3. Dacin, P.A., Dacin, M.T. and Matear, M. (2010), "Social Entrepreneurship: Why We Don’t Need a New Theory and How We Move Forward From Here", in Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 37–57.

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  4. Dees, J.G. (2001), The Meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship”, The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

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  5. Mair, J. and Marti, I. (2006), "Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight", in Journal of World Business, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 36–44.

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  6. Martin, R.L. and Osberg, S. (2007), "Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition", in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2007, pp. 29–39.

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  7. Mort, G.S., Weerawardena, J. and Carnegie, K. (2003), "Social entrepreneurship: Towards conceptualisation", in International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 76.

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  8. Nicholls, A. (2010c), "The Legitimacy of Social Entrepreneurship: Reflexive Isomorphism in a Pre- Paradigmatic Field", in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 611–633.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. HEC Management School Centre for Social Economy, University of Liege, Liege, Germany

    Benjamin Huybrechts

  2. Saïd Business School Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, University of Oxford, Oxford, Germany

    Alex Nicholls

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  1. Benjamin Huybrechts
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Schumpeter School of Business & Economic, University of Wuppertal, Gaußstr. 20, Wuppertal, 42119, Germany

    Christine K. Volkmann

  2. Section Business an Administration, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Morgartenstraße 2c, Bern, 3014, Switzerland

    Kim Oliver Tokarski

  3. Schumpeter School of Business & Economic, University of Wuppertal, Gaußstr. 20, Wuppertal, 42119, Germany

    Kati Ernst

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Huybrechts, B., Nicholls, A. (2012). Social Entrepreneurship: Definitions, Drivers and Challenges. In: Volkmann, C., Tokarski, K., Ernst, K. (eds) Social Entrepreneurship and Social Business. Gabler Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8349-7093-0_2

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