What is Social Entrepreneurship?

The Meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship” J. Gregory Dees
Say, Schumpeter, Drucker, and Stevenson described entrepreneurs as the innovation, change, value creation, and the pursuit of opportunity. Conventional entrepreneurs seek for an opportunity to create value and bring it into the existing market. In contrast, Social entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs with a social mission. Mission-related impact becomes the central criterion, not wealth creation. Although social entrepreneurs have the same fundamental structure that of a traditional entrepreneur, they value social improvements, public goods and harms, benefit for people who are in poverty. I can see that entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs are both fulfilling the needs and improving people’s lives. However, they are fulfilled in different light.

The challenges facing the social entrepreneurs, such as value creation, sustaining the impact, correctly assessing the needs and values of the people, were very informative. I understand that persistence, communication of an idea, and indication of value creation are essential traits for social entrepreneurs.


Reshaping Social Entrepreneurship. Paul Light
“A social entrepreneur is an individual, group, network, organization, or alliance of organizations that seek sustainable, large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas in what or how governments, nonprofits, and business do to address significant social problems.”
The article helped me define and understand the meaning of social entrepreneur. The reading illustrated how people, society, and media viewed social entrepreneurs. It included how people had wrong perception towards social entrepreneurs and emphasized that it is not about focusing the work of an individual.


Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition.
Roger L. Martin and Sally Osberg
“Interest in social entrepreneurship transcends the phenomenon of popularity and fascination with people. Social entrepreneurship signals the imperative to drive social change and it is that potential payoff, with its lasting, transformational benefit to society that sets the field and its practitioners apart.”

“In the pure form, the successful social entrepreneur takes direct action and generates a new sustained equilibrium." (p.38)

The comparison and example of illustrated cases certainly helped me to clearly distinguish social entrepreneur from the entrepreneur. It seemed to be more in depth example of the first article. Examples of contemporary entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs, Pierre Omidyar, and Fred Smith's stories are compared with social entrepreneurs such as Victoria Hale, and Robert Redford.