Ewing Marion Kauffman

Unfortunately, the field of social entrepreneurship has yet to emerge from its infancy, let alone reach the adolescence that Murray sees in the study of business entrepreneurship.

Much of the difficulty surrounds two basic questions that have yet to be fully resolved.

• First, what exactly is social entrepreneurship, and how is it different from entrepreneurship more generally?
• Second, how would researchers know a social entrepreneur if they saw one?

The field must tackle these questions if it is to move beyond collections of rigorous case studies, regardless of how interesting and provocative such studies can be.


Defining Terms Again

The field of social entrepreneurship does not suffer from a lack of definitions. The Skoll Foundation defines social entrepreneurs as “the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss, and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating sustainable solutions to change society for the better.”

In turn, the Schwab Foundation defines a social entrepreneur as a different kind of leader who “identifies and applies practical solutions to social problems by combining innovation, resourcefulness, and opportunities.”

In turn again, the Ashoka society defines social entrepreneurs as individuals with “the committed vision and inexhaustible determination to persist until they have transformed an entire system” who “go beyond the immediate problem to fundamentally change communities, societies, and the world.”*

These definitions are echoed the exemplary entrepreneurs identified by Ashoka, the Blue Ridge Foundation, Draper Richards Foundation, Echoing Green, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman, Schwab, and Skoll foundations.

Using these exemplars to enrich their funding guidelines, six of the seven mostly celebrate ideas that embrace innovation, show resourcefulness, and demonstrate a commitment to growth and widespread impact. One also focuses exemplars who take fully accountable action, another on those who take risks even in the absence of resources, another on those who adopt research-based initiatives and technology, another on those who tackle the root causes of social problems, and a last on individuals who connect people to the opportunities, resources, and support they need to improve their lives and fulfill their potential.

This focus on exemplars with certain characteristics and operating styles are easy to identify elsewhere in the social entrepreneurship community. As one might expect, for example, business schools that teach social entrepreneurship tend to emphasize the use of business skills to create innovation. New York University’s Stern School focuses on innovative approaches to solving social problems, for example, but also stresses the use of successful business practices, identification of market opportunities, taking of bold action without regard for resources currently in hand, and continuous improvement to bring the concept to reality.


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* I am grateful to Carmen Marie Rogers, a doctoral student at my home institution, for assembling these many definitions, and providing an initial coding.