Social Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review
Nguyen Duc Thanh Nhan, Dang Nguyen Truc Vy
Tran Quan Kien, Tran An Binh, Le Hong Nhat
Nguyen Ngoc Kim Uyen, Nguyen Xuan Thinh
Nguyen Kieu Thuy Nga
Abstract
Social entrepreneurship has been recently receiving greater recognition from the public sector, as
well as from scholars (Stryjan 2006; Weerawardena and Sullivan Mort 2006; Nicholls 2008). On
the one hand, encouraging social entrepreneurial initiatives has been at governments’ agenda for
a while now (European Commission 2003b, 101–2). Besides, several European states have set up
new organizational frameworks dedicated to these initiatives. On the other hand, scientific
research in the field has increased, as the number of conferences and special issues in academic
journals dedicated to this topic attest. We propose different definitions for the main concepts
associated with social entrepreneurship and, finally, discuss implications for future research.
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to offer comprehensive literature perspectives of social entrepreneurship.
The first part of this paper will examine the factors influencing the emergence and development
of social entrepreneurship. The second section will focus on defining social entrepreneurship
from different perspectives. The third section will examine the characteristics, functions, benefits
and challenges of social entrepreneur. The fourth section will discuss about research gaps, from
which some areas for future research should be implemented and the last will be some
implications for managers.
Background
As with any change-oriented activity, social entrepreneurship has not evolved in a vacuum.
The first factor which facilitates the creation of social entrepreneurship is that the non-profit
diminishing funding from traditional sources and increased competition for these scarce
resources. One change that has had a significant impact in North America has been the global
shift away from a social welfare state approach to development and towards a neoliberal
approach with an emphasis on market forces as primary mechanisms for the distribution (and
redistribution) of resources. Related to this is the emergence of an increasingly globalized
economic system. While the impacts of this shift are generally discussed in economic terms,
they also have significant implications for social change initiatives, e.g., the contradictory
phenomena of our current times - unprecedented wealth creation coupled with a growing gap
between rich and poor ( Reis, 1999). Within a social welfare state paradigm, many social change
initiatives were undertaken by the public and/or non-profit sectors, in the latter case drawing on
resources transferred from the public sector and/or philanthropic sources. Non-profits were (and
to a great degree still are) viewed as valuable contributors to social change. While demand for
social services has not decreased in the last two decades (and many would argue it has
increased), the transfer of funding to these organizations has decreased significantly. For
example, in the United States, federal and state funding for non-profits decreased 23% in the
1980s, and continued to decline in the 1990s (McLeod, 1997). This competition has many
implications for non-profit organizations. It necessitates judicious use of scarce resources and
increases pressure on non-profits to demonstrate organizational effectiveness (e.g., by producing
empirical results). The prevalence of market-based development models has also resulted in
pressure on non-profits to become more conversant with the language and vision of market
models (e.g., conducting market research with client groups, targeting ‘investments’ rather than
The another factor which is attributed to emerging social entrepreneurship is that the increasing
concentration of wealth in the private sector is promoting calls for increased corporate social
responsibility and more proactive responses to complex social problems, while governments at
all levels are grappling with multiple demands on public funds. While the changing global
context has had obvious impacts on the non-profit sector, the impacts have been felt in the public
and private sectors as well. Within the public sector, governments at all levels have had to adjust
to a rapidly changing environment, one that has shifted from a production based economy to a
knowledge-based economy (Reis, 1999, p.2) and all the changes this entails, including a faster
pace of change.
In light of this, social entrepreneurship is emerging as an innovative approach for dealing with
complex social needs. With its emphasis on problem-solving and social innovation, socially
entrepreneurial activities blur the traditional boundaries between the public, private and non-profit sector, and emphasize hybrid models of for-profit and non-profit activities. Promoting
collaboration between sectors is implicit within social entrepreneurship, as is developing radical
new approaches to solving old problems. Social entrepreneurship has a strong intuitive appeal,
and several recently documented examples highlight its potential in a variety of contexts.
However, this is still a very new area, and research on social entrepreneurship lags far behind the
practice.
Definition of Social Entrepreneurship
As mentioned earlier, social entrepreneurship is considered as a response to either market failure,
state failure or both, in meeting social needs (Nicholls, 2006; Yujuico, 2008). Defining what
part because the concept is inherently complex, and in part because the literature in the area is so
new that little consensus has emerged on the topic. Most of the literature on social
entrepreneurship has focused on defining and describing the phenomenon of social
entrepreneurship, stressing on two elements, namely social mission and entrepreneurial activities
(Corner & Ho 2010).
Different scholars have tried to see it from their own perspectives. For Dees (1998), social
entrepreneurs are a special breed of leaders. This perspective reflects the ‘great man’ approach
towards social entrepreneurship. Leadbeater (1997) states that social entrepreneurs are good
leaders, thereby offering a leadership approach to the understanding of SE. The concept of
‘social entrepreneurship’ has also been discussed in the context of social action. For example,
two social entrepreneurs (leaders) of the USA, namely Ken Kragen and Phillip Joanous, played a
critical role in bringing about ‘catalytic changes’ in public sector agenda and the perception of
certain social issues, by mobilizing private resources to raise public awareness (Waddock &
Post, 1991).
There is some reference to the various roles required for social entrepreneurial activities.
Thompson et al. (2000) note the distinction between social entrepreneurial leaders and managers.
De Leeuw (1999) argues that social entrepreneurs are more likely to be found in the role of
‘change agents’ than ‘change managers’ while Thompson et al. (2000) distinguish between
‘enactors’ (entrepreneurs) and ‘enablers’ (professional managers). Henton et al. (1997) argue that
a one-size-fits-all approach to social entrepreneurship is not viable, and that each project will
proceed through a series of four stages: initiation; incubation; implementation; and improvement
More recently, definitions of social entrepreneurship have proliferated. Some view it as ‘a
process consisting in the innovative use and combination of resources to explore and exploit
opportunities, that aims at catalyzing social change by catering to basic human needs in a
sustainable manner’ (Mair & Martí, 2004, p.3); with Noboa, Mair added that this social change
is catalyzed through the ‘creation of organizations and/or practices that yield and sustain social
benefits’ (Mair & Noboa, 2006).
The definitional purpose of our study also implies to determine to what extent this concept
differs from traditional, commercial, entrepreneurship. Indeed, what defines an element is a set
of peculiar characteristics that enable it to be distinguished from other elements, be they
commercial entrepreneurship or other non-entrepreneurial social activities. Previous research has
shown that entrepreneurship brings about social value by nature, e.g. in creating employment.
However, it does not imply that any entrepreneurial initiative pertains to social entrepreneurship.
We define social entrepreneurship as the process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting
opportunities aiming at social value creation by means of commercial, market-based activities
and of the use of a wide range of resources.
Characteristics of Social Entrepreneurship
From our literature review, we observe that the different geographical perspectives mainly differ
in the way they approach the enterprise concept, the internal organizational characteristics and
the issue of profit distribution.
First, let us analyze the different conceptions of the ‘enterprise’ in the different schools of
thought. By ‘enterprise’, we mean ‘any entity engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its
elaborated a common definition of the ‘social enterprise’ in order to analyze the various national
realities in Europe. Their definition is based on two series of indicators. On the one hand, four
criteria reflect the economic and entrepreneurial dimensions of the social initiatives considered:
(1) a continuous activity of goods and/or services production and sale; (2) a high degree of
autonomy; (3) a significant level of economic risk; and (4) a minimum amount of paid work. On
the other hand, five indicators encapsulate the social dimensions of the initiatives: (1) an explicit
aim to benefit the community; (2) an initiative launched by a group of citizens; (3) a decisional
power not based on capital ownership; (4) a participatory nature including all the activity’s
stakeholders; and (5) limited profit distribution. This is not a normative, prescriptive definition
but rather an ‘ideal-type’ (Defourny & Nyssens, 2006). The Social Enterprise School also
considers the organization as central. This approach defines social entrepreneurship
organizations as being non-profit organizations that set up profit-generating activities in order to
financially survive and become more independent of donations and subsidies they receive. The
main two elements that characterize a social entrepreneurship organization for the partisans of
the Social Enterprise School are the fact that it combines (1) a social objective, i.e. creating
social value, with (2) an entrepreneurial strategy, i.e. applying business expertise and market-based skills to not-for-profit organizations. This school of thought aims at the sustainability of
social entrepreneurship organizations and promotes complete self-sufficiency of non-profits,
which can be reached only through income generation and not through dependency on public and
private sectors (Boschee & McClurg 2003). Indeed, according to Boschee (2001), the ideal
solution to tackle a social need is to answer it autonomously without being accountable to
stakeholders. In contrast to the European perspective, the Social Enterprise School only stresses
School focuses on the social entrepreneur and his/her qualities, rather than on the organization
and its specificities. According to this approach, the ‘social enterprise’ is an activity set up by a
social entrepreneur and there is no mention of any economic risk.
Second, the internal organizational characteristics explored in the different articles are clustered
around five themes: governance, resources, legal form, learning and monitoring.
Governance: The governance of the fifteen work-integration social enterprises in a study by Vidal (2005) is mainly based on the “one person, one vote” principle and, to a lesser extent, on
consensus. She discovered that ownership of capital is important but that other stakeholders such
as collectives and interest groups participate in the decision-making process. The governance
differs between different types of work-integration social enterprises. In type A enterprises,
ventures that act as an intermediary between disadvantaged workers and the normal labor
market, it is common for their professionals and managers not to form part of their governing
bodies. In contrast, in type B enterprises, ventures that carry on productive activities themselves
and thereby provide stable jobs for disadvantaged people, it is common for workers to form part
of an enterprise’s governing body. Sharir and Lerner (2006) measure governance by the
involvement of board members in planning, decision-making, personal financial investment, and
expanding the social network. They conclude that the lion’s share of enterprises in their sample
suffered from poor governance board performance and suggest that this was caused by the
attempts of the social entrepreneur to retain implemental power (Sharir & Lerner, 2006).
Resources: Conventional entrepreneurs are said to not be confined by obstacles in regards to their aims. They will not limit their options because of insufficient resources, but rather they will
creatively combine multiple sources. This seems to hold equally true for social entrepreneurs
limitations in available resource” (Peredo & McLean, 2006). Dees concurs, finding that “social
entrepreneurs act boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand” (Dees, 1998).
Several studies in our analysis confirm the resource scarcity circumstances facing social
entrepreneurs. Part of the discussion on risk and the orientation of goals towards the
sustainability and viability of social ventures is explained by resource scarcity. The study by
Sharir and Lerner (2006) confirms the belief that social enterprises are hindered during their
start-up stage by lack of access to capital. According to Purdue (2001), lack of resources
hampered community leaders seeking to engage actively in connections with an extensive range
of local community networks, which made it difficult for them to accumulate communal and
social capital. Where some authors mainly stress the lack of resources, two studies look at
resources from a different angle.
Legal form: Both Spear (2006) and Vidal (2005) found that social enterprises choose diverse legal forms. According to Vidal, who investigated Spanish social enterprises, the choice depends
on local legislation. In addition, Vidal found that the legal form of the enterprise is not an
indicator of single or multiple stakeholder structure. Spear determined that the choice for a legal
form is not always rational and mediated through professionals, advisers, or support
organizations. In the case of enterprises in transition from public to private forms, the choice for
a legal form can even be an involuntary one.
Learning: Both Spear (2006) and Alvord, Brown, and Letts (2004) anticipated finding learning milieus in their respective samples of enterprises. All the initiatives investigated by the latter
authors did indeed emphasize learning by their staff and clients. Organizations with the largest
staff also turned out to have strong commitments to staff development in terms of resources
performance evaluation systems (Alvord et al., 2004). In contrast, Spear found that the learning
networks were less well developed than expected and depended more on social capital within
normal trading relations as well as on sympathetic stakeholders (Spear, 2006).
Monitoring: The social enterprise sector is increasingly subject to the need for greater
professionalization and is expected to submit to intensive performance monitoring. According to
the Sharir and Lerner study, monitoring and evaluation (e.g., the quality of planning and business
plan formulation) are poorly developed in social enterprises. The lack of monitoring and
evaluation even constrains the development of the sector (Sharir & Lerner, 2006). Turner and
Martin (2005) conclude that the social enterprises in their sample face a significant challenge in
relation to a fast-changing policy environment in improving their performance monitoring, which
requires managerial skills that have not traditionally been seen as one of their strengths. It is
interesting to note, in this respect, the article by Darby and Jenkins (2006), which is devoted to
the process of developing and applying indicators to improve monitoring. Although the process
entails both positive and negative aspects, their main findings concern problems with
organizational capacity affecting adaptability to change.
Third, often linked to the legal form, profit distribution is another important issue for social
entrepreneurship organizations. The Social Innovation School does not impose any constraint
regarding profit distribution. According to this movement, if the organization’s activity generates
benefits, these will preferably be reinvested in the social mission, but this is not a strict
obligation. Only the final increase of the social added value is important. In contrast, the Social
Enterprise School forbids any profit distribution as, according to the definition of non-profit
organizations, social entrepreneurship organizations cannot distribute profit to their directors or
Enterprise School has recently recognized social entrepreneurship organizations as ‘any business
venture’ (Alter 2004, p.5), which, consequently, authorizes some profit distribution to owners or
workers. Finally, the European approach advocates a limit to profit distribution. According to the
EMES network, the ‘social enterprise’, in its choice of the way it will distribute benefits, must
avoid a behavior that would lead to profit maximization. Hence, the ‘social enterprise’ can
distribute profit, but in a limited manner.
Role of Social Entrepreneurship
According to Nagler’s (2007) study “the social entrepreneur sector is increasingly important for
economic and social development because it creates social and economic values as listed below:
Employment development: 6 million women who have disadvantages in human rights have been supported in micro entrepreneurs by Grameen Bank of Bangladesh
Innovation: Social enterprises improve and operate the important innovations to social and economic development and develop new goods and services. They focus on some of the biggest
societal problems such as lack of education, poverty, undeveloped medical care, crime, etc.
Social Capital: The most important values created by social entrepreneurship are social capital, usually understood as “the resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of
relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition" (Burt, 2000, p.28)
Equity Promotion: Social business enterprise focus on social problems to boosting growth and promote in equitable society. Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank supports disadvantaged
women. American social entrepreneur J.B. Schramm has helped thousands of poor students to
Social entrepreneurs are so aware about the common man’s issues and want to develop viable
solutions to alleviate them. They are the answer to the questions “Who should be responsible for
the existence of society into the future and who should take care of society’s needs?” (Roper
et.al, 2005a, p.102) and “Is the problem of poverty in the world caused by the idleness and
wrong choices of individuals or is it driven by the greed of society, continually oppressing and
exploiting those at the bottom of the pyramid?” (Theron, 2010, p.16)
Benefits of Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship can improve or develop the economy by following these some main
aspects:
Creation of jobs: Social entrepreneurship is a background for the formation of jobs and employment. According to Aimee Meade (2013), “Not only can social enterprises offers more
employment they can act as a campaigner and advocates for employing people from outside the
usual suspects.” Beside, Paul Wilson (2011) believe that: “Social enterprises have two
intersecting roles when it comes to employment. One is that employers in their own right aspire
to be excellent employers and seek employment as a central part of their remit. The other is the
sector’s role as advocates and catalysts in demonstrating that employing people from outside the
existing employed workforce Is not only a good thing, but also the right thing to develop their
businesses as well as the economy of country”.
Innovations: Social entrepreneurship is known as innovators impact directly on economy of any countries. They not only creates a creative industries but also help to boost the economy. Hilde
Schwab (2011) said: “Social entrepreneurs and their innovations promoting inclusive economic
force behind the innovations that improve the quality of life of individuals around the world,
which also helps in developing the economy.”
Enhancing Social Investments/Trade: Social Entrepreneurship is a main source which brings different social investment and trades and also contributing to the dynamic shift in social justice,
cultural sustainability and economic development all over the world (Trapp, 2015). According to
Tim Rann (2014), “Social entrepreneurship includes micro finance, fair trade, triple bottom lines
companies, B corps, incubators and other for profit business or noon profit market interventions
with a defined and measurable social impact”. Impact investment is fully connected with social
entrepreneurship. Impact investing is defined by Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) as
“investments made into organizations, funds and companies with the intention to generate social
and environmental impact alongside a financial return” (US advisory board on impact investing,
2014).
Poverty alleviation: Social entrepreneurship is viewed as a way of combating poverty, with the pursuit of an entrepreneurial strategy (Diochon, 2013). “Many studies indicated that opening up
of trade has a positive impact on poverty reduction” (Khurshid, 2013). Social entrepreneurship
has a promising approach to eliminate the causes of poverty, which helps in boosting the
economy. Social entrepreneurship makes ventures that may be for benefits or nonprofit, yet the
need is frequently on utilizing market oriented exercises to create framework change that
enhances the lives of individuals. Social entrepreneurship has a specific capacity in the financial
ecosystem (Barham, 2013). According to Mead and Lieholm (1998), social entrepreneurship is a
successful means of financial advancement and poverty alleviation in bankrupted and lower
poverty and increases income for the beneficiaries of microfinance are at best inconclusive
(Kareem, 2015).
Challenges of Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurs have been around for many years, but the explosion in global connectivity
and intense competition for philanthropic funds seems to have propelled the sector into a more
central position in the business world. The essential difference between social enterprises and
traditional businesses is that the mission is central to the business of a social enterprise, and
income generation takes an important, but secondary, supportive role. The social entrepreneur
seeks to implement innovative and creative ideas to solve large-scale social problems in a
sustainable way. A social enterprise faces the same issues that any traditional business faces in
its growth and operations. But social entrepreneurs also face unique challenges in delivering the
social value, social returns or social impact of the enterprise in addition to commercial value.
There are four aspects that social entrepreneurship might confront: funding, communicating
value objectively, strategy and long-term focus and remaining true to mission.
Funding: Social enterprises can be run as for-profit or non-profit and sit somewhere in the middle of the traditional corporation and a purely charitable organization. Some organizations
are able to generate sufficient income through the sale of socially beneficial goods or services,
but many are not. Other funding opportunities include corporate investment, donations and
government funding. Approaching investors may not be easy, however, if the organization is
perceived as more non-profit than profit-oriented and not likely to make a reasonable return for
investors. On the other hand, many donors are distrustful of a social enterprise being run as a for-profit company where too much focus may be placed on wealth generation and too little on
social value.
Communicating Value Objectively: The social enterprise delivers more than commercial value, and it is the additional social value that often ignites the passion of the social entrepreneur. This
in combination with the fact that social value is not easily measured can make it difficult to
communicate the bottom line to investors, donors or the community at large. It is important to
stay objective to remain convincing, and to make the right decisions in moving the enterprise
toward its goals.
Strategy and Long-Term Focus: It is important to any business to identify a long-term strategy, define appropriate goals and drive growth in a sustainable manner. Difficulties for social
enterprises again stem from the fact that the purpose of the organization is to create social
benefits. It is often the case that multiple social benefits can mean multiple goals, all of which
must be evaluated in terms of cost of provision to ensure true value creation. A strong strategy
will identify a unique value proposition compared to other organizations and indicate clearly
what the organization will not do. Activities of the social enterprise should work together and
reinforce each other.
Remaining True to the Mission: Establishing a good strategy for the social enterprise will help to mitigate the possibility of mission creep. It is often easier to fight fires and not focus on the
long-term goals of the organization, but this could result in an undesirable shift in the social
value provided. A successful organization will continuously review strategy and work to
Research gaps and Implication for further research
I conclude that SE has attracted the attention of researchers because of its ability to create new
solutions to societal problems. Social entrepreneurs are recognized as agents of change, because
they create social value and bring about social change while solving social problems. There are
still a number of gaps (which are both explicit from researches and implicit) in the literature
recently on social entrepreneurship. This sector specifies these gaps as potential areas for
relevant future research on social entrepreneurship.
We observe a strong increase in the number of articles on social entrepreneurship that is both
conceptual and empirical since the turn of the century, although the absolute and relative number
of empirical studies remains limited. Two decades of conceptual exploration resulted in valuable
contributions and gave rise to the emergence of different schools of thought, but this exploration
did not provide unity in concept definition and boundary setting. Although the lack of unity may
be considered a hindrance for the development of social entrepreneurship as a field of scientific
inquiry, it is debatable whether a single unified construct may ever be attained.
As long as agreement on the concept is lacking, it is worth paying considerable attention to the
explication of what social entrepreneurship entails when applying the concept. Surprisingly, this
is not the case in all of the studies in this review. An inventory of the definitions used throughout
the articles left us with several gaps, articles that did not provide a description of what was meant
by social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneur, or social enterprise. Even though the lack of
unity in concept formation is a hindrance for rigorous theory testing and theory building, the
explicating the defining characteristics, such as the ones used to describe the different schools of
thought (Adock & Collier, 2001).
With regard to innovation (the second defining characteristic of the Social Innovation School),
some studies captured this topic, but extensive empirical research remains scarce. Especially
within this particular school, the absence of research on disruptive change, addressing and
changing the structures that caused social and environmental problems in the first place, is a
glaring omission. Addressing this void is of considerable practical relevance. More than ever, we
are confronted with persistent problems-such as widespread disparity of income and extreme
poverty-in need of the alternative approaches that social entrepreneurs are said to provide but of
which we know very few. Studying successful cases of entrepreneurs who have been able to
affect disruptive and incremental innovations, create the factors promoting change, or stimulate
the diffusion of innovations are just a few of the topics at hand.
Discussion around issues related to monitoring and/or evaluation of social entrepreneurship
projects is underdeveloped at best, and will likely need to be addressed if social entrepreneurship
is going to be sustainable over the longer term. This may be a particularly relevant area to
organizations and individuals seeking funding and investment from public sector sources where
monitoring and evaluation activities would be a requirement.
We encounter another gap when considering the second key characteristic of the SE School,
namely, limited or complete profit distribution. None of the empirical studies pay attention to
this subject, despite the fact that the effects of the constraints on otherwise presumed profit
maximizing behaviors are interesting, especially in light of the current discussions on
misconduct in profit maximizing behavior by commercial enterprises. Theoretical work on a
such as the contributions of Francois (2003) and Glaeser and Shleifer (2001), could serve as a
basis for empirical assessment.
In all, it is an understatement to say that the emerging field of social entrepreneurship offers a
fertile source for future research opportunities. In our discussion, we have provided structure for
some of these opportunities by concentrating on the key characteristics of the various schools of
thought and emphasizing potential topics that are appropriate for empirical assessment.
Implications for Management Practice
With regards to the entrepreneur, research places an emphasis on the societal motivation of
social entrepreneurs. These individuals translate societal concerns into business opportunities. In
order to be effective at that, they exhibit values such as empathy and have a deep understanding
about the holistic and systemic nature of sustainability issues. Our contributions show that, if we
are to foster more social forms of entrepreneurship, we need to train entrepreneurs differently,
placing an emphasis on change and a more holistic view of organizational success, as
exemplified e.g. by the triple bottom line. Managers and organizations as well as universities
therefore might need to rethink their training programs if they are to support innovation in the
benefit of society.
Regarding the entrepreneurial process the contributions outline the difficulties of translating
societal concerns into feasible products and services. The evaluation of new ideas also becomes
more complicated as they often fall between philanthropy and business development. Finally the
exploitation of social business opportunities in many cases depends on new partnerships between
corporations is that they need to learn how to build and work in networks of different societal
actors, which have a different vision on what success looks like.
On the organizational level, social entrepreneurship also has important implications for for-profit
companies that are asked by their customers and other stakeholders to exert more social
responsibility. This is precisely where social entrepreneurship implications intersect with
corporate social responsibility issues (Pirson, 2009). Learning from social entrepreneurs,
managers today might see opportunities where they once saw risks. Nowadays, more and more
for-profit ventures are created from the start on the basis of the discovery of a social opportunity.
This is because there is an increasing demand for products and services fulfilling a societal need.
Social entrepreneurs develop products and services addressing these social needs and discover
new sources of profitability. Social entrepreneurs can inspire management by new forms of
revenue generation and the exploitation of opportunities (Grayson & Hodges, 2004; Porter
& Kramer, 2006). They exemplify that opportunities are the flipside of risks and challenges.
Finally, social entrepreneurs do not only adapt to a given environment– they envision andcreate
it. Managers who are able to foresee societal trends not only avoid risks by this ever more
demanding clientele, but might turn out to be social intrapreneurs, turning these new challenges
into profitable products and services.
Conclusion
In conclusion, extensive research has shown social entrepreneurship to be an important concept
that vastly affects society. Definitions of social entrepreneurship are changing noticeably over
time. Intensifying demands for improved effectiveness and sustainability and the increasing
entrepreneurship. We have delineated characteristics, roles, advantages and challenges of social
entrepreneurs, thereby, examined some of research gaps and raised future research avenues.
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