Classical Relevance to Contemporary Social Entrepreneurship: Integration and Transformation of Social Entrepreneurship Research

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship stands on a long-standing foundation (Santos, 2012; Jain, 2009) of an array of theoretical perspectives and antecedents (Bula, 2012; Pless, 2012; Chell et al., 2010; Shaw & Carter, 2007) which have contributed immensely to the formation of current conception of social entrepreneurship and social innovation (Ebrashi, 2013; Abu-Saifan, 2012) both academically and practically (Audretsch, 2012). Theorists, researchers and academicians have worked out and published extensively (Kraus et al., 2014; Chell, 2007) in the discourse and evolution of social entrepreneurship from different standpoints and perspectives (Welsh & Krueger, 2012; McDougall & Oviatt, 2000), the bits and pieces altogether have shaped and molded what today we name as social entrepreneurship (Shaw & Carter, 2007; Spear, 2006; Roper & Cheney, 2005) with the passage of time in academia and entrepreneurial research (Nicolopoulou, 2014; Short et al., 2009).

Chell (2007) from another perspective has mentioned that throughout the 20th century multiple discourses of enterprise and the entrepreneur have developed which could be traced back as a backdrop to understand both social and economic entrepreneurship focusing on social enterprise being construed and evolved from a form of entrepreneurship overtime. Welsh and Krueger (2012) in this regard have interestingly pointed out the need of further maturation of the field of social entrepreneurship indicating further research on its theoretical grounds depicting a clear research gap as per the subject matter. An exploratory citation analysis of social entrepreneurship research to date conducted by Kraus et al. (2014) shows that a wide palette of different social entrepreneurship sub-domains have been conversed, although all authors are in agreement that social entrepreneurship research is yet in its immaturity and scattered lacking a concrete theoretical picture.

In this context, this research namely "Classical relevance to contemporary Social entrepreneurship” explores the classical and contemporary theoretical perspectives on social entrepreneurship and social innovation which culminates into a theoretical understanding catering to the fundamental and foundational knowledge in this field of social entrepreneurship. This research puts forth a theoretical relevancy tracing back the basics of social entrepreneurship and innovation both empirically and through critical literature review toward constructive future theoretical directions of social entrepreneurship research. In the form of typological research, the results of this research reveal the core theoretical understanding underpinning the field of social entrepreneurship comprising of the Knowledge-based and Resource-based perspectives, Social Capital perspective, Social Learning perspective, Planned Behavior perspective and Perspective on Cultural Dimensions – inserting the direction toward cross-disciplinary integrative research in identifying the expanded elements of this typology.