Rethinking Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprises: A Three-Dimensional Perspective
This chapter enriches the theory of social entrepreneurship by rethinking social entrepreneurship in a three-dimensional disciplinary perspective. In order to confirm the extraordinary features of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in creating
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Rethinking Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprises: A Three-Dimensional Perspective Anders Lundstro¨m and Chunyan Zhou
Abstract
This chapter enriches the theory of social entrepreneurship by rethinking social entrepreneurship in a three-dimensional disciplinary perspective. In order to confirm the extraordinary features of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in creating social value and achieving social outcomes, a threedimensional development and value view of social enterprises are proposed. Entrepreneurship is held to be a family of three dimensions, consisting of commercial entrepreneurship, humanistic entrepreneurship, and social entrepreneurship. In the chapter we argue that such an approach could bring fresh development to social entrepreneurship as well as to commercial entrepreneurship, not only for a deeper understanding of different parts of social entrepreneurship, but also as a basis for understanding that the model presented could influence the future work of institutions, the policy measures to be taken, and the fact that this model will make possible a better understanding of the phenomena. In fact, the model, which integrates commercial entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and humanistic entrepreneurship, is a tool for describing these three different dimensions. In this chapter, the model is developed, while its policy implications will be considered later in the book.
A. Lundström (&) MidSweden University, Östersund, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] C. Zhou International Institute of Triple Helix (IITH), Palo Alto, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Zhou MidSweden University, Shenyang University, Shenyang, People’s Republic of China
A. Lundström et al. (eds.), Social Entrepreneurship, International Studies in Entrepreneurship, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-01396-1_4, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
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4.1
Introduction
The knowledge explosion in the natural sciences and technology has hidden the influence of the social sciences and the humanities on world development since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-eighteenth century. The driving force behind development seems to be solely technological change exploiting natural resources: the role of social and humanistic sciences and technology have been marginalized. Yet entrepreneurial activities should be thought of in terms of commercial, social, and humanistic dimensions, as a dynamic, complex process drawing on a wider knowledge system. Entrepreneurial processes are relevant to ‘social technology’, as in the social relations first coined by Helmer et al. (1966), as well as to ‘humanistic technology’ such as mental tests and didactics focusing on human care, and ‘commercial technology’. Such three-dimensionally coded knowledge leads to a three-dimensional value view of the cornerstones in social entrepreneurship and social enterprise research. Social entrepreneurship follows the pattern of commercial entrepreneurship, and is considered an entrepreneurial activit
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