Introduction: What is Social in Social Entrepreneurship?
Abstract
This book investigates the social of social entrepreneurship: what is meant by connecting entrepreneurship with the social?How does the social make social entrepreneurship different from entrepreneurship, if at all?Is social entrepreneurship a new field within entrepreneurship research that needs its own theories and concepts?Or is it just an epitheton ornans and is it better to question any distinction between entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship?Or, yet again, does the social appellation create new chances to probe into the sociality of entrepreneurship and into a (new) entrepreneuriality of society?The title of this third Movements in Entrepreneurship book -Entrepreneurship as Social Change -suggests a probing answer in the form of claiming a double sociality for entrepreneurship.Firstly, the title indicates that entrepreneurship is connected to social change and societal transformation.This is an observation, belief and concept that has become popular in the recent rise in interest in social entrepreneurship, which we take up to inspect critically, yet affirmatively: how is social change understood, imagined and practiced?By connecting entrepreneurship with social change, we believe the platform or the 'space' of entrepreneurship becomes disclosed as part of society (Steyaert and Katz, 2004; Hjorth and Steyaert, 2003) and we can grasp the chance to look into the multidiscursive construction of entrepreneurship beyond any economic or progress-instrumentalist reductionism.However, some contend that the emergence of social entrepreneurship brings along rather a return to economic and economizing discourse and an intensification of managerial logic.This book examines this claim more closely, asks whether this is an inevitable evolution and inquires what alternative turns or twists can be formulated and tried out: this book asks what people to come, what society to come is unimagined in this dominant approach to 'social entrepreneurship', and brings such examples to our readers.Secondly, the title puts forward a concept of entrepreneurship that says that entrepreneurship is a process based on the course of social change.By conceiving entrepreneurship as social change, we believe a possibility is created to inquire into the social nature of entrepreneurship and to switch the 1
Cite this
Chris Steyaert, Daniel Hjorth (2006). Introduction: What is Social in Social Entrepreneurship?. Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781847204424.00008
@article{chris2006introduction,
title = {Introduction: What is Social in Social Entrepreneurship?},
author = {Steyaert, Chris and Hjorth, Daniel},
year = {2006},
journal = {Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks},
doi = {10.4337/9781847204424.00008}
}Citations in this library
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