Whose Change are We Talking About? When Multiple Parties and Multiple Agendas Collide

Abstract

While the field of entrepreneurship is relatively young compared to most other social sciences, the area of social entrepreneurship is even younger. In fact, it was not until 1991 that the term “social entrepreneur” was first used in the academic literature (Waddock and Post, 1991). Since that time, scholarly interest in social entrepreneurship has increased, but “with minimal progress in theory development” (Short et al., 2009: 168). In response, Short et al. address ten areas in which scholars can advance theoretical and empirical research on social entrepreneurship. While the areas these authors identify and the related research questions they propose are certainly both relevant and important to increasing the rigor and validity of what we know about social entrepreneurship, their focus on the firm and individual levels of analysis ignores what we believe to be an equally significant issue at the dyad level of analysis—conflict.