Keywords

The study of new and emerging businesses has gained increased attention and legitimacy over the past 40 years as an academic discipline (Gartner and Liao 2012; Zanakis et al. 2012; Cassar, 2014) . When the business schools at the University of Southern California and Harvard University launched their entrepreneurship programs, the first in the world to do so, there were no tenure-track faculty lines in entrepreneurship, no departments of entrepreneurship, no journals devoted to entrepreneurship theory and research, and barely any mention even of small business management in business schools worldwide. Today, in stark contrast, not only are there graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship courses at most every university on the globe, along with tenure-track faculty positions and tenured faculty in entrepreneurship, there are also several departments of entrepreneurship, a few Colleges/Schools of Entrepreneurship, scores of unfilled endowed chairs and professorships in Entrepreneurship at even the most respected universities, and more than 40 journals devoted to research on entrepreneurship and innovation (Stewart and Cotton 2013) .

More recently, particularly over the last 10 years, there has been increased interest in social entrepreneurship , which focuses entrepreneurial attention on the launch and growth of businesses that address social problems and social needs (Bjerke and Karlsson 2013; Stoner and Wankel 2007; Wankel 2010) . Historically, addressing social issues has been the realm of government, academic, and philanthropic institutions. However, with mounting evidence of widespread moral decay throughout Corporate America, sparked by the Enron scandal, and coupled with similar acts of corruption and unethical leadership throughout the UK, Europe and Asia (cf. Bandsuch et al. 2008; Pate et al. 2008) , business schools began placing greater emphasis on business ethics and social responsibility (Petrick et al. 2012) . Business schools also stepped up to the challenge of offering solutions to deep-seated and long-standing social issues through their new entrepreneurship programs (Worsham 2012; Mirabella and Young 2012; Driver 2012) . There is an emerging body of research documenting the size and scope of social entrepreneurial activity around the world (Salamon et al. 1999; Lepoutre et al. 2013; Terjesen et al. 2012) .

With widespread global economic challenges brought on by a deep recession, and fueled by unemployment, poverty, inadequate sanitation and health care, rising gas prices, unstable home prices, a string of uprisings in the Middle East, and the ever-widening divide between the “haves” and “have nots,” the need for generating innovative solutions to long-standing social problems could not be greater (Amen et al. 2011) . As a field of inquiry, social entrepreneurship offers practical solutions to pressing social problems In turn, this new generation of social entrepreneurs is gaining the knowledge and skills needed to find their niche and make a difference in the world. Additionally, the growing field of social entrepreneurship is one that often addresses social issues at the grassroots level (Bornstein 2004; Brooks 2009) .

When observing such social problems, many people wish they could be heroes. After all, who has not had their heart broken when observing extreme poverty, oppressive political upheaval, or the degradation of the world’s natural and physical resources? Wanting to be a hero is one thing. Becoming a hero is quite another. Business school must train future leaders to focus on ideas that matter, and limit and direct the search for innovation (Miller and Wedell-Wedellsborg 2013) .

Social entrepreneurship , both as an emerging field and as a force for creating deep social change, draws from several disciplines, including business (Müller 2012) , sociology (Goss et al. 2011; Maurer 2012) , public administration (Hosu 2012; Short et al. 2009) , and social work (Berzin 2012; Germak and Singh 2010; Savaya et al. 2008) . While some limited theory and research exists, for the most part it has been lacking in providing sufficient answers regarding the mix and sequence of factors within a social entrepreneurship program that are likely to bring about the greatest impact (Sakarya et al. 2012; Fernandez et al. 2012; Ansari et al. 2012) . Many theoretical questions remain as well. In order to design and implement effective social entrepreneurship programs that will provide the best possible educational experience to students, we need stronger theory and more convincing research evidence on the many possible cause-effect relationships inherent to a successful social entrepreneurship program (Pless 2012; McCarthy 2012) .

The social and behavioral sciences have at their roots established methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis in the study of human social activity (Tashakkori and Teddlie 2010) . Entrepreneurship, while perhaps less well defined as a discipline, has at its roots the ideas of creativity, innovation , imagination, entrepreneurial thinking, opportunity recognition/identification, risk taking, new product and service development, and profit creation (Armstrong et al. 2012) . Each of these elements manifests differently depending on the individual(s), the context(s), and the culture(s) in which the entrepreneur interacts (Alvarez and Urbano 2012) .

A social entrepreneur, then, is a person who identifies and attempts to solve a social problem on a large scale. His or her primary motive is not profit or financial gain—although being fiscally sound and even profitable are critical keys to sustainability—but rather added social value .

If the social and behavioral sciences rely on empirical investigation and rigorous analysis, whereas entrepreneurship relies on the whims of the marketplace to determine value creation through profits, how do we study and measure the impact of social entrepreneurship efforts ? If the mission of social entrepreneurship is to add value in the form of large-scale, transformational benefit to people who are physically, financially, or otherwise unable to solve their own problems, how can social entrepreneurship researchers define and measure success?

Emerging Research Directions in Social Entrepreneurship examines these and other critical research issues that face social entrepreneurs. Research, in particular, is vital to the healthy development and understanding of social entrepreneurship. After all, if one cannot use the empirical investigation of the social and behavioral sciences or the profit margin of entrepreneurship as benchmarks, then how can funding agencies determine whether or not a social entrepreneur is creating sufficient social value to justify the resources spent in attempting to create that value?

Part One of this book looks at the essential qualities of social entrepreneurs. Although we are calling them “heroes,” do they identify as such? Or, is humility an important element of the social entrepreneur? What is the identity of a social entrepreneur?

In their chapter “Humility and Social Entrepreneurship: A Virtuous Circle,” authors Catalin Ratiu, Bennett Cherry, and Troy R. Nielson explore the link between humility and social entrepreneurship . The extant literature on the broader topic of humility is summarized, as well as a contextualization and illustration of how these constructs interact. The authors identify linkages between humility and the characteristics of the entrepreneur, and explore the utility of humility in the social venture. They propose that the virtue of humility will increase the likelihood that individuals with entrepreneurial skills will engage in social ventures. The authors submit that a humble entrepreneur is more likely to recognize social and environmental needs, and to identify new and innovative entrepreneurial opportunities to address those needs. An integrated framework is developed that can be used to guide scholarly work in the area of humility in social entrepreneurs.

Chris Mason, in the chapter “Voices in the Fog: Accounts of Social Entrepreneurship Identity in the UK Third Sector,” explores the tensions in the establishment of social enterprise identity. Specifically, the chapter elucidates how the “talk” of social entrepreneurs within social enterprise reflects social, economic, and political rhetoric. The analysis shows the uncomfortable tensions between each of the three major themes, and often the presence of a social mission (collated under advocacy) is utilized as a linguistic framing device to distinguish between them.

Part Two of this book investigates the wider impact of social entrepreneurship. This section examines how social entrepreneurial organizations create value and impact the various environments in which they operate.

In her chapter “Opportunities for Social Value Creation across Supply Chain Interactions,” Jennifer Woolley discusses the process of social value creation by organizations. The framework that emerges shows that social value creation is not isolated to an organization’s customers or direct beneficiaries, but can occur in a wide range of downstream, internal, and upstream activities as well. Building on this model, this chapter examines the actions and interactions of a social venture that generate internal and external opportunities to create social value across the supply chain. From this, a framework of social value creation opportunities emerges that highlights the variety of activities and opportunities for social value creation, while providing insights into social entrepreneurship opportunity discovery and recognition. The framework that emerges shows that social value creation is not isolated to an organization’s customers or direct beneficiaries, but can occur in a wide range of downstream, internal, and upstream activities as well.

The chapter by Wolfgang Spiess-Knafl and Stephan A. Jansen, “Social Enterprises and the Financing of Different Scaling Strategies,” takes a closer look at the financing structure of social enterprises and the different scaling types. The authors show which financing instruments are available to social enterprises and which investors can provide the required funding. They also discuss how, depending on the structure of the cash flows, social enterprises have different options to finance their activities. Social enterprises also have access to different revenue streams which can be based on public or private funding. The authors discuss the role of public funding for social enterprises as public authorities are increasingly modifying their funding schemes to support social enterprises more actively. Moreover, the role of diversification for the income structure of social enterprises is discussed as there are various arguments pushing for a higher as well as a lower level of diversification of the income structure.

Next, the chapter by Thema Monroe-White, “Creating Public Value: An Examination of Technological Social Enterprise,” proposes that social enterprises aim to create essential public values via the search and exploitation of new opportunities—gaps left by markets and governments. Her research examines the mission statements of 150 technologically innovative social enterprises and offers broad implications for opportunity-seeking social entrepreneurs and policy makers interested in assessing the social impact of these organizations. Monroe-White’s study proposes that social enterprises meet needs that are unmet by markets and government, thereby generating essential public values.

In their chapter “A Replicable Evaluation Method of Social Entrepreneurship Centers and Programs,” Noushi Rahman and Rebecca Tekula develop a replicable evaluation method of social entrepreneurship centers and programs. This, of course, gets at the heart of using quantitative data to measure the success of social entrepreneurial ventures. Such an approach to examine social entrepreneurship centers and programs performance goes beyond the perception-based ranking instruments that popular magazines employ to evaluate subject-specific rankings. While the bulk of their chapter covers the mechanics of their measuring instrument, the vast implications for social entrepreneurship centers and programs, social entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship scholars, and funders are all discussed .

Finally, Part Three of this book looks at the global impact of social entrepreneurship. We were fortunate to attract scholars and researchers from around the world. It is in Part Three that the global impact of social entrepreneurship becomes apparent. It is here that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can truly change the world.

In the chapter “Innovation Ecosystems in Brazil: Promoting Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability,” Ana Cristina O. Siqueira and her colleagues highlight cases of organizations that promote social entrepreneurship and sustainability in Brazil by supporting an ecosystem of innovation . Taken together, these cases illustrate the work of organizations involved in social entrepreneurship while enriching their local innovation ecosystems. Taken together, these cases illustrate the work of organizations involved in social entrepreneurship while enriching their local innovation ecosystems. The chapter is a key contribution to the literature on social entrepreneurship by emphasizing that the innovation ecosystem perspective can be valuable to understand the effects sustainability and social entrepreneurship initiatives have on their local communities .

Furthering the global theme, the chapter by Dima Jamali and Liya Kreidie looks at “Social Entrepreneurship in the Arab World: Lessons from Lebanon.” In this chapter, the authors provide a baseline understanding of the social enterprise sector in Lebanon, a country with significant opportunity to benefit from this emerging trend, by examining six cases of budding social entrepreneurship ventures from the Lebanese context. Through the cases, the authors illustrate the opportunities and challenges for social entrepreneurship in the Arab region. Their findings highlight the strengths and shortcomings of the social enterprise sector in Lebanon and bring to the forefront the role of institutional factors in shaping the potential development of social entrepreneurship .

In their chapter “Evolutionary Dynamics of Organizational Legitimacy of a Social Enterprise in a Developing Economy,” Sougata Ray and Anjan Ghosh explore the micro-level interactions of the actors of a social enterprise and show how the actors establish different types of organizational legitimacy with the key constituents of the organization’s external environment. The main objectives of the chapter are twofold: first, to make early contributions in understanding the criticality of legitimacy in the context of social entrepreneurship; second, to create some useful insights for the practitioners of strategy in social ventures.

The book wraps up with Mara Del Baldo’s chapter, “Developing Businesses and Fighting Poverty: Critical Reflections on the Theories and Practices of CSR, CSV, and Inclusive Business.” In it, she explores the development of inclusive businesses, paying particular attention to the mission and the motivations underlying the choices of sustainable businesses that benefit low-income communities, and bring added value for companies and people living in poverty alike. The driving aim of her study is to understand if the ethics underlying the approach (that can be read in the context of corporate social responsibility ethical theories) distinguishes diverse models or typologies of inclusive business practices.

Emerging Research Directions in Social Entrepreneurship offers insight and reflection into the direction of various social entrepreneurship efforts by providing the solid research tools to design and measure the impact of social entrepreneurial ventures. After all, it is not enough to feel like one is helping. One needs data to show that the efforts are, in fact, working.

It is clear that social entrepreneurs are the often-unsung heroes who tackle some of the hardest challenges in our world today. They feel the same heartbreak as others, but when they see that some part of society is “stuck,” they find what is not working and attempt to solve the problem by changing the system within which the problem evolved. In that light, we hope you enjoy and benefit from the thoughts, theories, and ideas contained in this book from some of the leading scholars who are actively engaged in research in this critically important field.