Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/sej.69

RESEARCH IN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: PAST

CONTRIBUTIONS AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
JEREMY C. SHORT,* TODD W. MOSS, and G. T. LUMPKIN
Rawls College of Business Administration, Texas Tech University, Lubbock,
Texas, U.S.A.

Social entrepreneurship has been a topic of academic inquiry for nearly 20 years, yet relatively
little scholarly output has appeared in mainstream management and entrepreneurship jour-
nals. Our review of this literature reveals that conceptual articles outnumber empirical
studies, and empirical efforts often lack formal hypotheses and rigorous methods. These find-
ings suggest that social entrepreneurship research remains in an embryonic state. Future
research would benefit from the incorporation of multivariate methods to complement the case
study techniques that have dominated previous efforts. Our review also suggests that social
entrepreneurship is informed by common areas of interest to management scholars like entre-
preneurship, public/nonprofit management, and social issues, all of which represent fruitful
venues for future research efforts. Therefore, we recommend that scholars embrace key themes
in strategic entrepreneurship and frame their research using established theories, such as
contingency theory, creation theory, discovery theory, innovation diffusion theory, resource
dependence theory, and other theoretical bases relevant to strategic entrepreneurship research.
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society.

INTRODUCTION policy makers (Korosec and Berman, 2006). The

Understanding the process of new value creation is
central to the field of entrepreneurship (Alvarez and
Barney, 2007). Extending this value creation logic
to the realm of social entrepreneurship has led to an
emerging research stream of interest to researchers
and scholars in management, strategic management,
and entrepreneurship (Austin, Stevenson, and Wei-
Skillern, 2006; Certo and Miller, 2008; Peredo and
Chrisman, 2006; Schendel and Hitt, 2007). The
concept is also of interest to the business press
(Gangemi, 2006), individual and corporate entrepre-
neurs (Bornstein, 2005; Hemingway, 2005), and
Keywords: social entrepreneurship; social venture; social
enterprise; community enterprise; nonprofit; public
administration
*Correspondence to: Jeremy C. Short, Rawls College of
Business Administration, Area of Management, Texas Tech
University, Box 42101, Lubbock, TX 79409-2101, U.S.A.
E-mail: jeremy.short@ttu.edu
practice of social entrepreneurship is also growing,
with 6.6 percent of the population in the U.K.
involved in some type of activity that is focused on
community or social goals, either as a start-up
venture or as owner-managers of that venture
(Harding, 2004). Additionally, practitioner awards,
such as the Skoll Foundation’s Award for Social
Entrepreneurship and Fast Company magazine’s
Social Capitalist Awards, lend further credence to
the growing impact of social entrepreneurship.
Despite increased interest in social entrepre-
neurship, scholarly research has been challenging.
Because definitions of social entrepreneurship have
been developed in a number of different domains,
such as not-for-profits, for-profits, the public sector,
and combinations of all three, a unified definition
has yet to emerge (Christie and Honig, 2006;
Weerawardena and Mort, 2006). For example, some
definitions limit social entrepreneurship to non-
profit organizations (Lasprogata and Cotton, 2003),

Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society

162 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
while others describe social entrepreneurship as for-
profit companies operated by nonprofit organiza-
tions (Wallace, 1999), or organizations that create a
firm at a financial loss (Baron, 2007). Still others
equate social entrepreneurship to philanthropy
(Ostrander, 2007), while some scholars embrace
broader definitions that relate social entrepreneur-
ship to individuals or organizations engaged in
entrepreneurial activities with a social goal (Certo
and Miller, 2008; Van de Ven, Sapienza, and Vil-
lanueva, 2007). In sum, this disparity of terminology
is troubling because lack of a unified definition
makes establishing the legitimacy of a field or con-
struct difficult (e.g., Berger and Luckman, 1966;
Neilsen and Rao, 1987; Reed and Luffman, 1986;
Short, Payne, and Ketchen, 2008). It also hinders
empirical research seeking to examine the anteced-
ents and consequences of social entrepreneurship.
For example, failure to consistently measure a social
venture’s performance makes comparisons in the
level of social entrepreneurship across ventures dif-
ficult, and ultimately limits our ability to understand
elements that might reliably foster social entrepre-
neurship. Establishing the legitimacy of a nascent
field is important to the community of management
scholars because decisions on promotion, tenure,
and merit-based pay increases are partially depen-
dent on an appraisal of the value and legitimacy of
the research one has conducted (Pfeffer, 1993).
To bridge the gap between our current under-
standing of social entrepreneurship and an enhanced
knowledge that could aid in researching and foster-
ing this emerging field, this article first analyzes the
current state of intellectual exchange among schol-
ars and highlights potential areas of improvement
(e.g., Busenitz et al., 2003). To accomplish this goal,
we review and critique existing social entrepreneur-
ship research and propose a model that delineates its
conceptual boundaries. We next suggest that themes
of interest to the field of strategic entrepreneurship
(Schendel and Hitt, 2007) can be leveraged to offer
suggestions for future scholarly research in areas of
theory building, theory testing, and in other disci-
plines with the potential to shape future research
efforts (cf. Ireland and Webb, 2007).
ASSESSING THE STATE OF SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH
To gain greater understanding of the social entrepre-
neurship literature, we identified and analyzed the
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
body of articles published in leading management
and entrepreneurship journals where the primary
topic of interest was related to social entrepreneur-
ship or the social entrepreneurship phenomena.
Therefore, we searched for articles that explicitly
mentioned social entrepreneurship, social entrepre-
neur, social venture, or social enterprise, without
placing boundaries on time period. Given that social
entrepreneurship is a relatively recent research
stream, we wanted to explore every article on the
subject and, hence, examined every possible year.
This body of literature consisted of scholarly outlets
in management and entrepreneurship as examined
by Tahai and Meyer (1999) and Busenitz et al.
(2003). Management journals included Academy of
Management Journal, Academy of Management
Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal
of Management, Management Science, Organiza-
tion Science, and Strategic Management Journal.
Dedicated entrepreneurship journals included Entre-
preneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Busi-
ness Venturing, and Strategic Entrepreneurship
Journal. This analysis revealed only eight articles;
one was published in Academy of Management
Review, one in Academy of Management Journal,
two in Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, and four
in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. We then
expanded our search to other research-oriented jour-
nals in business and other fields using the EBSCO,
Web of Knowledge, ABI/INFORM, and Science
Direct databases for peer-reviewed scholarly arti-
cles, again allowing for all years available in each
database. This expanded search yielded 152 relevant
articles from a variety of scholarly disciplines includ-
ing, but not limited to, management and entrepre-
neurship, with the first article appearing in 1991.
This constitutes the sample used for our coding
scheme and content analysis that follows. Table 1
displays the outlets for social entrepreneurship
research to date, as well as those research domains
that are citing social entrepreneurship articles from
our sample. A complete list of the 152 articles used
in our review is presented in the Appendix.
Social entrepreneurship research has spanned a
period of nearly 20 years. This time frame is similar
to other time periods studied by scholars who assess
fads, fashions, and trends. Topics considered to
fall into this category include new public manage-
ment, quality circles, reengineering, downsizing,
management by walking around, and Theory X/
Theory Y (e.g., Abrahamson, 1996; Abrahamson
and Fairchild, 1999; Dunleavy et al., 2006; Miller,
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej
 Research in Social Entrepreneurship 163

Table 1. Domains publishing and citing social entrepreneurship research

Domain and peer reviewed journals publishing social entrepreneurship research Published Cited

Accounting — 4 (1%)
Anthropology 1 (1%) —
Human Organization (1)
Economics 14 (9%) 31 (5%)
Annals of Public & Cooperative Economics (1), Economic Affairs (1), Economic
Development Quarterly (1), Far Eastern Economic Review (1), International Journal
of Social Economics (6), Journal of Economics and Management Strategy (1), Local
Economy (2)
Education 7 (5%) 25 (4%)
Academy of Management Learning and Education (1), Action Learning: Research and
Practice (1), Career Development International (1), Industry & Higher Education (1),
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks (1), Library Trends (1), Reflections (1)
Entrepreneurship 17 (11%) 105 (18%)
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (4), Entrepreneurship and Regional
Development (1), International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Innovation (1),
International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management (1),
International Small Business Journal (1), Journal of Applied Management &
Entrepreneurship (1), Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (4), Journal of
Small Business & Enterprise Development (1), New England Journal of
Entrepreneurship (1), Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (2)
Finance 1 (1%) —
Journal of Investing (1)
Law 2 (1%) 3 (1%)
American Business Law Journal (1), Wake Forest Law Review (1)
Management 40 (26%) 74 (12%)
Academy of Management Journal (1), Academy of Management Review (1), Business
Horizons (2), Business Strategy & the Environment (1), Business Strategy Review (5),
Corporate Governance: An International Review (2), Corporate Governance: The
International Journal of Effective Board Performance (1), California Management
Review (2), Equal Opportunities International (1), Greener Management International
(1), Harvard Business Review (5), ICFAI Journal of Management Research (1), Ivey
Business Journal Online (1), Journal of American Academy of Business (1), Journal
of Organizational Change Management (2), Journal of World Business (6),
Leadership in Action (1), Leader to Leader (1), Management Decision (2), MIT Sloan
Management Review (1), TAMARA: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization
Science (1), University of Auckland Business Review (1)
Marketing 9 (6%) 40 (7%)
International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing (2), Journal of
Consumer Behavior (1), Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing (3),
Journal of Strategic Marketing (1), Qualitative Market Research (1), Social
Marketing Quarterly (1)
Operations Management — 2 (<1%)
Political Science 15 (10%) 64 (11%)
Administration and Society (1), Fraser Forum (1), International Journal of Public
Administration (3), International Journal of Public Sector Management (1), Journal
of Public Administration Research and Theory (1), Journal of Public Affairs (1),
National Civic Review (1), Pacific Affairs (1), Public Administration Review (4),
Public Management Review (1), Review of Political Economy (1)

Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej
164 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin

Table 1. Continued

Domain and peer reviewed journals publishing social entrepreneurship research Published Cited

Psychology — —
Sociology 7 (5%) 1 (<1%)
Australian Journal of Social Issues (1), Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (1),
MultiCultural Review (1), Social Forces (1), Social Work (1), Society (1)
Other Business 25 (16%) 131 (22%)
Business Ethics Quarterly (1), Journal of Business Ethics (5), New Directions for
Philanthropic Fundraising (1), Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly (4), Nonprofit
Management and Leadership (5), Stanford Social Innovation Review (4), Voluntas:
International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations (6)
Other 14 (9%) 84 (14%)
TOTAL 152 595

Hartwick, and LeBreton-Miller, 2004). As a bur- Social entrepreneurship publications

geoning area of inquiry, social entrepreneurship is
also likely to have its own fads or fashions. For
example, research on social cooperatives (autono-
mous associations where individuals create a jointly
owned enterprise to meet common social and eco-
nomic needs) has emerged as a fruitful area of
inquiry in recent years (e.g., Lindsay and Hems,
2004; Mancino and Thomas, 2005; Thomas, 2004).
While more than 7,000 such organizations appear in
Italy alone, future research is needed to examine if
such organizations are fads or legitimate new orga-
nizational forms.
Our sample of 152 articles on social entrepreneur-
ship showed an increase in publication rate of 750
percent over the 18-year time span of our sample.
Additionally, the number of social entrepreneurship
articles decreased in only four of those years, includ-
ing only once in the past six years. These results
compare favorably with Busenitz and colleagues’
(2003) finding that the rate of publication of entre-
preneurship articles in management journals
increased by 62 percent over a 15-year period. The
growth of foundations—such as the Skoll Founda-
tion—tailored towards fostering and promoting
social entrepreneurship provides an additional indi-
cator of the increasing legitimacy of this nascent
stream. Indeed, Skoll’s growth from about $40
million in 2000 to its 2006 endowment of over $600
million shows the importance private and public
donors place on aiding social entrepreneurs (Osberg,
2006). Thus, evidence suggests that while particular
topics may be driven by fads or fashions, social
entrepreneurship research as a whole seems to be
gaining prominence.
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
and citations
The outlets publishing social entrepreneurship
research hint at the acceptance of social entrepre-
neurship as a field of academic inquiry by members
of academic societies and may provide evidence of
this research stream’s legitimacy (e.g., Busenitz
et al., 2003; Lockett and McWilliams, 2005). To
better highlight sources of social entrepreneurship
research, we built upon an existing framework
developed by Ireland and Webb (2007), who exam-
ined the diverse nature of disciplines contributing to
entrepreneurship research and reported the linkages
of a variety of disciplines, such as accounting,
anthropology, economics, finance, management,
marketing, operations management, political science,
psychology, and sociology.
The most common discipline contributing to the
social entrepreneurship research was management
(26%), followed by entrepreneurship (11%), politi-
cal science (10%), economics (9%), marketing (6%),
sociology (5%), and education (5%). Disciplines
such as anthropology (1%), finance (1%), and law
(1%) are minimally publishing work in social entre-
preneurship, and we found no social entrepreneur-
ship articles in the domains of accounting, operations
management, or psychology. Overall, our review
suggests that social entrepreneurship research is
beginning to reach a broad audience, and that
there may be sufficient interest within multiple
domains to warrant cross-disciplinary scholarly
collaboration.
Citation analysis has often been used as a measure
of intellectual influence and relevance of research
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej
 Research in Social Entrepreneurship 165

(Lockett and McWilliams, 2005). To examine Table 2. Characteristics of conceptual and empirical
the impact of social entrepreneurship research on articles on social entrepreneurship
other intellectual domains, we examined published
research that cited articles from our sample of social Conceptual articles (N = 80) Count (out of 80)
entrepreneurship articles. As many of the journals in Purpose
our sample are not included in the Social Science Descriptive 30 of 80 (38%)
Citation Index, we used Harzing’s Publish or Perish Explanatory 44 of 80 (55%)
software to identify scholarly citations in Google Predictive 6 of 80 (7%)
Scholar. Harzing’s measure has been compared with
ISI, and was found to provide a more comprehensive Use of formal propositions 6 of 80 (8%)
and accurate measure of journal impact (Harzing and
van der Wal, 2009). We eliminated foreign language Empirical articles (N = 72) Count (out of 72)
papers, working papers, dissertations, and books
Use of formal propositions or 6 of 72 (8%)
from the Harzing’s results, so our citation analysis hypotheses
was based solely on English language journal arti-
cles. The 152 articles in our sample have been cited Qualitative methodsa total 54 of 72 (74%)
595 times, as shown in Table 1. Three of the top five Case study 43 of 72 (60%)
most cited articles appeared in public administration Grounded theory 8 of 72 (11%)
journals; three articles appeared in Public Adminis- Discourse analysis 2 of 72 (3%)
tration Review, making up 49 (8%), 29 (5%), and 21 Interpretive 1 of 72 (2%)
(4%) of the citations respectively. Two of the top five Quantitative methodsa total 16 of 72 (22%)
most cited articles came from management journals, Descriptive statistics 14 of 72 (19%)
with 39 of those citations (7%) from the lone article Correlations 6 of 72 (8%)
published in Academy of Management Journal, and Regression 2 of 72 (3%)
24 citations (4%) from a single article in Manage- SEM 2 of 72 (3%)
ment Decision. Overall, management and entrepre- T-tests 1 of 72 (2%)
neurship journals cited articles in our sample of Ranking 1 of 72 (2%)
social entrepreneurship articles 179 times (30%), Cluster analysis 1 of 72 (2%)
suggesting that the impact of social entrepreneurship Method not specifieda total 3 of 72 (4%)
research on these two fields has been considerable
relative to other disciplines. Data collectiona
To further examine the boundary and exchange Interviews 49 of 72 (68%)
conditions of social entrepreneurship research, we Secondary data 21 of 72 (29%)
coded a number of critical issues in a similar vein as Surveys 16 of 72 (22%)
Busenitz and colleagues’ (2003) review of entrepre- Observation 10 of 72 (14%)
neurship research. We divided research into concep- Source not specified 11 of 72 (15%)
tual and empirical efforts to assess the distinctive a
Articles are coded into more than one category if applicable,
merits of each contribution type (e.g., Busenitz therefore total is greater than 100%.
et al., 2003). Of the 152 social entrepreneurship
articles in our review, 80 (52%) were conceptual and
72 (48%) were empirical in nature. For conceptual prediction (Kerlinger, 1986; Snow and Thomas,
articles, we examined the purpose of the article and 1994). To assess the purpose of each article, we
coded for use of formal propositions. For empirical coded if articles provided descriptions by defining
articles, we coded for use of formal propositions key constructs like social entrepreneurship; provided
or hypotheses, research method, research setting, explanations concerning why and to what degree
sample size, and the measurement of the social key constructs (such as social entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurship construct. The results of our content performance) are related; or made predictions of
analysis are displayed in Table 2. organizational outcomes, such as the antecedents or
consequences of social entrepreneurship.
Conceptual articles
Thirty descriptive articles in our sample of con-
Theoretical contributions can broadly be cate- ceptual articles (38%) chiefly sought to describe the
gorized by their goals of description, explanation, or what of social entrepreneurship, without providing
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej
166 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
additional theoretical perspectives upon which
research in social entrepreneurship might be
informed, or concrete predictions to aid future
research efforts. For example, Peredo and McLean
(2006) sought to set boundaries around the concept
of social entrepreneurship in their continuum of
social goals and commercial exchange. Explanatory
contributions addressing questions of how and why
a phenomenon occurs or affects other outcomes were
evident in 44 of the 80 articles (55%). For example,
Dart (2004) uses institutional theory to explain the
origin and evolution of social enterprise as a function
of alignment with societal norms and expectations,
rather than being driven by actual societal benefits.
We coded articles as predictive when propositions
were explicitly stated; only six articles (7%) fit this
criterion. For example, Weerawardena and Mort
(2001) propose that in a nonprofit context, the level
of social entrepreneurship in an organization will
be positively related to distinctive market-focused
learning capabilities. In another notable exception,
Townsend and Hart (2008) propose that founders and
stakeholders of new social ventures who emphasize
either economic or social value creation will influence
the ventures to adopt either for-profit or nonprofit
structures, respectively. The general dearth of theo-
retical propositions could be interpreted in two differ-
ent ways. First, scholars may still be trying to identify
and develop the construct of social entrepreneurship,
and the construct’s tenuous nature at present may
prohibit the formation of propositions that future
scholars may operationalize. An alternative explana-
tion is that the majority of journals where social entre-
preneurship research is currently being published do
not require such structured presentation of construct
relationships. In other words, more rigorous theoreti-
cal development will not occur unless it is required
by editorial review boards of scholarly journals.
To date, the development of social entrepreneur-
ship research parallels developments in the field of
strategic management in that the first two decades
of research have been characterized by a lack of
predictive research and an anecdotal emphasis on
social entrepreneurship heroes rather than generaliz-
able details (Hitt, Gimeno, and Hoskisson, 1998).
The lack of predictive articles is a result of disparate
construct definitions, unclear boundary conditions,
and anecdotal antecedents to performance. The
results of our coding of conceptual papers confirm
that research in social entrepreneurship is in its
infancy. To date, only 10 papers in the social entre-
preneurship literature used formal propositions,
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
including six conceptual and four empirical articles.
Scholars are focusing primarily on describing and
explaining social entrepreneurship, rather than on
predicting this phenomenon. Even with this empha-
sis, however, the descriptions extend over a wide
range of phenomena and numerous types of explana-
tions. While description and explanation should
eventually lead to a unified view to strengthen the
construct, this unity does not currently exist.
Implications of conceptual findings
Based on our review of conceptual social entrepre-
neurship articles, we believe scholarly progress in
social entrepreneurship research will not accelerate
until theoretical relationships become more explicit,
reflecting Cummings’ (2007) sentiment that legiti-
macy can be gained when research questions are
principally theory driven, and data gathering and
analytical methods are chiefly quantitative. If the
social entrepreneurship field is to progress, the next
two decades should be characterized by unity in
construct definition and by examining the social
entrepreneurship construct through a variety of
established theoretical lenses with clear boundary
conditions. One example of establishing boundary
conditions comes from Tracey and Jarvis’s (2007)
study of the rise and fall of a social venture fran-
chise. Using resource scarcity and agency theories,
they show how the factors of success for social
venture franchises are both similar to and different
from traditional business franchises.
Peredo and Chrisman’s (2006) Academy of
Management Review work provides an exemplar
for future theoretical developments extending the
concept of social entrepreneurship. They extend
research in social entrepreneurship to develop the
concept of community-based enterprise, combining
elements from commercial entrepreneurship, anthro-
pology, and social network theory to show how
community-based enterprises may differ from the
standard notion of entrepreneurship. In their model,
economic factors are integrated with natural and
social capital to transform a community into both an
entrepreneur and an enterprise. Their model sug-
gests that social and economic stress, incremental
learning, the level of social capital or resources, and
community size are key determinants of the emer-
gence of community-based enterprises.
Empirical articles
Empirical efforts were coded to highlight use of
formal hypotheses, research method, data sources,
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej

geographical research setting, sample size used, and
how social entrepreneurship was operationalized or
measured (e.g., Boyd, Gove, and Hitt, 2005; Dean,
Shook, and Payne, 2007; Short, Ketchen, and
Palmer, 2002).
Use of formal hypotheses
Kerlinger defines a hypothesis as ‘a conjectural
statement of the relation between two or more vari-
ables’ and explains that ‘good’ hypotheses ‘contain
two or more variables that are measurable or poten-
tially measurable and that they specify how the
variables are related’ (1986:17). Hypotheses are
important for three main reasons (Kerlinger, 1986).
First, they provide the working tools of theory.
Second, they allow for testing of the relations
between variables, and thus can be shown to be
likely true or likely false. Finally, hypotheses are
important because they can be tested apart from a
researcher’s values and opinions. Thus, in rigorous
empirical research, one would expect to find theo-
retically driven, specific hypotheses to describe rela-
tionships between variables. From this vantage
point, it is disappointing that of the 72 empirical
articles studied, only two (3%) set forth
operational hypotheses that may be rigorously tested
(McDonald, 2007; Young, 2006). Additionally, only
four (5%) empirical papers to set forth general
propositions based on their case studies and
grounded theory methods.
Research method
We coded the method of research social entrepre-
neurship scholars employ to allow comparisons to
reviews of the management, strategy, and entrepre-
neurship literatures. Forty-three of the 72 empirical
articles in our review (60%) relied primarily on case
study methods, while eight (11%) developed a
grounded theory of social entrepreneurship, two
(3%) used discourse analysis, and one (1%) used
interpretive naturalist methods. Fourteen of the 72
articles (19%) reported descriptive statistics, and six
(8%) reported correlations. Two of the 72 articles
(3%) used regression analysis, two (3%) used struc-
tural equations modeling, and one article each (2%)
reported t-tests, rankings, and cluster analysis.
Developing theory from cases is useful when
studying new topical areas because resultant insights
may be validated by more rigorous techniques as
research progresses (Eisenhardt, 1989). However,
theories resulting from case studies may be overly
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 167
complex due to the richness of the data gathered, and
such efforts may lack generalizability due to the
limited scope of the study. For example, Roberts and
King (1991) studied policy entrepreneurs—individ-
uals who develop, legitimize, and implement inno-
vative ideas for the public sector. From their study,
11 categories of activities in which public policy
entrepreneurs engage were identified, including idea
generation, problem framing, dissemination activi-
ties, strategic activities, project demonstration,
cultivating bureaucratic insiders and advocates,
collaboration with high-profile elite groups, support
of elected officials, lobbying, media attention/
support, and administration/evaluation. While their
study is insightful, its usefulness may be limited to
public policy contexts, making its generalizability to
other aspects of social entrepreneurship question-
able. Thus, future research would benefit from
approaches that contribute parsimonious and gen-
eralizable frameworks that can be validated with
rigorous research methods.
Research settings
Social entrepreneurship research is a global phe-
nomenon, and scholarly work to date reflects this
trend. The geographic setting with the most empiri-
cal social entrepreneurship articles was the U.K.,
with 24 (33%). The second most popular setting was
the U.S., with 18 articles (25%). Geographic settings
in other countries accounted for 25 (35%) of the
articles in our review, including India (four articles);
Canada (three articles); Australia, Brazil, China, and
The Netherlands (two articles each); and Brazil,
Israel, Italy, Kenya, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria,
Norway, South Africa, and Spain (one article apiece).
Finally, five empirical articles (7%) in our review
sampled multiple countries in the same study. Our
sample of articles focused on a variety of social
sectors, including economic development, educa-
tion, environmental concerns, government, health
and human services, housing, furniture, philan-
thropy, venture capital, and technology. The diverse
geographic nature represented in our sample is an
indication of the international nature of social entre-
preneurship research and its potential to benefit
humankind globally.
Sample size
In general, the larger the sample size, the better
the statistics calculated from the data, as the
sample becomes more representative of the larger
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
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168 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
population (Kerlinger, 1986; Short et al., 2002). Fol-
lowing research by Boyd and colleagues (2005), we
assessed sample size based on average samples per
article, the median sample, and the range of sample
sizes. Boyd et al. (2005) reported the median sample
of 215, with an average of 2,552 observations per
article, in their review of 196 strategic management
articles. In contrast to these findings, sample sizes in
social entrepreneurship research are much smaller.
Specifically, the 72 empirical social entrepreneur-
ship articles in our analysis yielded a sample median
of five, with an average of 1,149 observations per
article. These findings were skewed by the 16 arti-
cles that used quantitative methods. When these 16
are excluded, the average sample size fell to 15
observations. Research on the determinants of firm
performance found that strategic management
research has exceeded the minimum number of
sample to observations needed for most multivariate
techniques (Short et al., 2002). By comparison, the
relatively low sample sizes evident in social entre-
preneurship research suggest that statistical power
could be problematic in social entrepreneurship
research and limit the type of analysis that could
be utilized to understand social entrepreneurship
phenomena.
Measuring social entrepreneurship
There is considerable variance in the measurement
of social entrepreneurship. Measures range from
qualitative assessments—such as nature of innova-
tion, fit of opportunity with community’s objectives,
and implementing strategies—to more easily quan-
tifiable targets such as total contributions and size of
donation. In the 72 empirical articles in our review,
we found that 271 measures were either operational-
ized (quantitative articles) or deemed important to
the success of social ventures without providing
details about metrics (qualitative articles). The 16
articles that used quantitative methods principally
used Likert-type survey measures, such as type of
assistance municipalities provide to social ventures,
perceived social status, and number of innovations,
as well as more concrete measures, such as amount
of charitable contributions (Korosec and Berman,
2006; Ma and Parish, 2006; McDonald, 2007). Con-
ceptual papers highlighted potential measures, such
as Covin and Slevin’s (1989) entrepreneurship scale,
the triple bottom line, and rank-order differences
between venture founding decisions and specific
economic and social motivations (Townsend and
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Hart, 2008; Weerewardena and Mort, 2001). To
advance research in social entrepreneurship, Sawhill
and Williamson (2001) recommend measures that
are simple and easy to communicate, such as mea-
suring progress toward mission-oriented goals.
To gain insights into how social entrepreneurship
is measured, we differentiated between empirical
studies that viewed social entrepreneurship as a
dependent variable (DV) versus an independent
variable (IV). Of the 16 articles that used quantita-
tive methods, eight examined social entrepreneur-
ship as an IV and eight as a DV. Studies that used
social entrepreneurship as a DV described outcomes
such as social impact, or the ways in which social
ventures give back to the community, such as inno-
vation and job creation (e.g., Borins, 2000; Harding,
2004; McDonald, 2007). Researchers who viewed
social entrepreneurship as an IV emphasized mea-
sures related to the processes and resources used by
social ventures to improve venture success, includ-
ing social mission and characteristics of the entre-
preneur, organization, and industry sector (e.g., Ma
and Parish, 2006; McDonald, 2007; van der Scheer,
2007). These findings suggest that there are oppor-
tunities for further contributions to the social entre-
preneurship literature by more carefully distinguishing
between social entrepreneurship as a process as well
as an outcome.
Implications of empirical findings
As shown in Table 2, the limited empirical work in
social entrepreneurship draws largely from case
studies and grounded theory approaches. Eisenhardt
(1989) highlights the appropriateness of such tech-
niques for the early stages of research where the
creation of novel theory provides a basis for future
research efforts. Unfortunately, the concept of social
entrepreneurship has appeared in scholarly outlets
for almost two decades with minimal progress in
theory development. A well-developed body of work
should include a balance of studies that are general-
izable, accurate, and specific (Weick, 1979; Short
et al., 2002). Case studies may be accurate and spe-
cific, but they often lack an ability to offer generaliz-
able findings. Social entrepreneurship research will
remain in a developmental state if future research
efforts fail to incorporate large sample empirical
tests of the determinants and consequences of social
entrepreneurship. While the case method of theory
verification has played an important role in the
development of the social entrepreneurship construct
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to date, future research should move past reliance on
case studies to incorporate specific hypotheses tests
and embrace multivariate research methods if this
research stream is to mature (e.g., Hitt et al., 1998).
Our results can be compared to reviews of other
research streams. Shook and colleagues (2003)
examined trends in quantitative data analysis tech-
niques for articles published in Strategic Manage-
ment Journal from 1980 until 2001. Methods with
significant rates of growth during this time period
include multiple and hierarchical regression, pooled
time series analysis, financial event study, logistic
regression, and structural equation modeling. Any of
these methods would allow for rigorous tests of
research questions in social entrepreneurship; unfor-
tunately, social entrepreneurship research to date has
been slow to incorporate such established empirical
techniques. A notable exception is found in the work
of McDonald (2007), who used a mixed method
study of grounded theory building to generate
hypotheses, which were then tested with a survey
and structural equations modeling. The two-study
approach using qualitative and quantitative methods
was also one of only two in our sample that tested
formal hypotheses using rigorous statistical methods.
Such work provides an exemplar for future social
entrepreneurship efforts.
Comparisons to reviews of entrepreneurship
research also hold insights for the development of
social entrepreneurship as a field of study. Dean and
colleagues (2007) explored trends in entrepreneur-
ship research and found that in a random sample of
582 articles, or half of all articles published in
Journal of Business Venturing (1985–2004) and
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (1976–2004),
354 articles (61%) used quantitative research
methods. The remaining 39 percent were either con-
ceptual papers or used qualitative methods. Our
finding that conceptual papers dominate social entre-
preneurship research and that empirical articles are
largely reliant on the case study method with poor
construct measurement provides further evidence
that the field of social entrepreneurship is still in an
embryonic state (e.g., Boyd et al., 2005; Low and
MacMillan, 1988).
DELINEATING THE BOUNDARIES OF
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Our review of the social entrepreneurship literature
indicates that for nearly two decades, social
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 169
entrepreneurship has been viewed through a variety
of conceptual lenses; yet, very few studies have
yielded empirical findings that allow researchers to
make broad conclusions about the nature of social
entrepreneurship. We encourage management schol-
ars to embrace a broad definition of social entrepre-
neurship, such as the one proposed by Mair and
Marti (2006: 37), who note:
‘First, we view social entrepreneurship as a
process of creating value by combining resources
in new ways. Second, these resource combina-
tions are intended primarily to explore and exploit
opportunities to create social value by stimulating
social change or meeting social needs. And third,
when viewed as a process, social entrepreneurship
involves the offering of services and products but
can also refer to the creation of new organizations.
Importantly, social entrepreneurship, as viewed in
this article, can occur equally well in a new orga-
nization or in an established organization, where
it may be labeled ‘social intrapreneurship.’ Like
intrapreneurship in the business sector, social
intrapreneurship can refer to either new venture
creation or entrepreneurial process innovation.’
To better understand the boundary and exchange
conditions of social entrepreneurship, we compare
and contrast social entrepreneurship with three
related research domains: entrepreneurship, public
and nonprofit management, and social issues in man-
agement. These domains, which correspond to divi-
sions in the Academy of Management, represent the
key arenas within the field of management that
encompass the social entrepreneurship phenomenon.
The Academy of Management represents the largest
and most encompassing body of management schol-
ars, and its divisions are areas that may come to
mind as scholars decide how to position their work
on social entrepreneurship. Additionally, we hope
that our framework will assist scholars in identifying
opportunities for research that will clearly encom-
pass the social entrepreneurship phenomenon. An
overlay of these three domains to inform various
definitions in social entrepreneurship research is
shown in Figure 1. The conceptual overlap for these
research domains may be divided into seven sections
highlighting current and future research efforts.
Section 1 identifies the unique contribution of
entrepreneurship research as a field whose focus is
defined by an interest in new value creation, as entre-
preneurship research is concerned with building
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
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170 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
Entrepreneurship
1 issues in management. Research within this domain
4 5
7
Public/nonprofit Social issues in
management
management 6
2 3
Context
8 responsible policies due to pressure exerted by inter-
Figure 1. Conceptual domains informing social
entrepreneurship research
knowledge about how opportunities are brought into
existence as future goods and services are discov-
ered, created, and exploited. Entrepreneurship also
embraces the consequences for the exploiter, stake-
holders, and society as a whole (Venkataraman,
1997). Research in entrepreneurship is concerned
with how the exploitation of these opportunities has
the potential to enhance firm performance and/or
lead to new market entry (e.g., Busenitz et al., 2003;
Lumpkin and Dess, 1996).
Section 2 relates to the primary characteristic of
public and nonprofit research, namely the inherent
interest in fostering social improvements in society.
Research in nonprofit organizations has traditionally
been concerned with reducing social ills, providing
social goods that the marketplace will not adequately
supply, and supplementing government activities
through the actions of private citizens (Dees, 1998).
Nonprofit research not only examines charitable
organizations, like the United Way or the Red Cross,
but is also concerned with non-charitable organiza-
tions that supplement government activities, such as
social clubs, political organizations, and political
action committees. Like nonprofit research, public
sector research studies social improvements, albeit
through government entities, like local municipali-
ties that are concerned with strengthening communi-
ties through raising awareness of social issues,
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
regulation, and planning (e.g., Korosec and Berman,
2006).
Section 3 focuses on the interplay between orga-
nizations, their stakeholders, and various environ-
ments and is characteristic of research on social
is based on a multidisciplinary foundation that
examines social change at the micro-, meso-, and
macrolevels of analysis (Bies et al., 2007). Issues
commonly studied in this domain include organiza-
tions and the community, corporate governance,
diversity, employee relations, the natural environ-
ment, human rights, and organizational safety (e.g.,
Harrison and Freeman, 1999; Johnson and Greening,
1999; McWilliams and Siegel, 2000; Waddock and
Graves, 1997). Organizations may adopt socially
nal and external actors (Aguilera et al., 2007), as
well as by a more abstract collectivistic orientation
in which organizational participants see themselves
as members of a larger societal group (Brickson,
2007). This latter view is aligned with research on
the construct of collective interest, which has been
defined as actions or decisions that relate to group
interests, rather than the interests of the individual
(Van de Ven et al., 2007; Villanueva, 2007). This
collective side of human nature assumes that indi-
viduals have an inherent desire to bond with others
and rejoice in others’ successes. For example, while
individuals have been observed to advance their own
interests in everyday organizational life, they also
act in prosocial, altruistic ways that may be incon-
sistent with self-interested behavior (Batson, 1998;
Piliavin and Chang, 1990). Such behaviors may
extend beyond the boundaries of an organization to
include multiple stakeholders, increasingly affecting
a broader collective.
In Section 4, the contribution of entrepreneurship
and public/nonprofit research informs social entre-
preneurship by including activities that contribute to
new social value creation, such as the creation of
new or growing nonprofit organizations that provide
opportunities to meet unfulfilled social needs and/or
create social value (Gartner, 1988). Research in this
conceptual space examines an innovative process in
which opportunities are exploited through bringing
together a unique package of resources in the context
of a nonprofit or public sector organization (Borins,
2000; Morris et al., 2001). For example, Lasprogata
and Cotton (2003) define social entrepreneurship in
terms of charitable nonprofit organizations (as
defined by the U.S. tax code) that seek to sustain
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themselves financially through revenue-generating
activities. In a similar vein, Rangan (2004) presents
a conceptualization of nonprofit organizations
seeking to expand their operations into new areas;
to do so effectively requires strategic planning to
link their missions to their programs, to avoid
pushing the organization into unintended directions.
Maguire, Hardy, and Lawrence (2004) use the
context of a poorly resourced community organiza-
tion to show that institutional entrepreneurship in
emerging fields (such as social entrepreneurship)
involves three critical activities: (1) occupying
‘subject positions’ that are widely legitimate and
link diverse stakeholders; (2) theorizing new prac-
tices through political and discursive means; and (3)
institutionalizing these practices by connecting them
to the values and routines of stakeholders. Innova-
tion as a means of value creation also plays a role
in this intersection. Bach and Stark (2002) explore
the innovative use of interactive technologies by
nongovernmental organizations to mitigate social
problems and give voice to underrepresented minor-
ity groups. Another example includes Haugh’s
(2007) definition of nonprofit social ventures as ven-
tures that pursue social, environmental, or economic
aims to act as agents in regeneration and renewal
and use trading to generate at least part of their
income. Haugh’s (2007) model of nonprofit venture
creation includes six stages: (1) identifying oppor-
tunities; (2) articulating ideas; (3) owning ideas; (4)
mobilizing stakeholders; (5) exploiting opportuni-
ties; and (6) reporting to stakeholders. Finally,
Borins’ (2000) study of entrepreneurial public ser-
vants examined the origin of public sector innova-
tions, the nature of those innovations, the factors
leading to the approval and support of the innova-
tions, and how public sector managers overcome
obstacles to implementing the innovations. Such
work suggests that entrepreneurial public innovators
add social value by developing a clear vision, main-
taining focus on social goals, proactively solving
problems, and ethically overcoming obstacles,
resulting in improved service and lower costs
(Borins, 2000).
The overlap of entrepreneurship and social issues
in management (Section 5) is concerned with new
value creation that impacts the relationship between
organizations and societal stakeholders in various
environments in new ways. Conceptualizations of
social entrepreneurship that fall into this area include
Peredo and Chrisman’s (2006) article in which they
extend research in social entrepreneurship to
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 171
develop the concept of a community-based enter-
prise. Community-based enterprises are conceptual-
ized as communities that act corporately as both
enterprises and entrepreneurs, to provide sustain-
able benefits to individuals and groups. While indi-
viduals within the community-based enterprise are
recipients of economic and noneconomic new value
creation, the focus of the enterprise is on collective
community development, thus benefiting multiple
stakeholders. To demonstrate that social entrepre-
neurship may be manifest as corporate social
responsibility, the term corporate social entrepre-
neur has been coined to describe individuals who
operate in a socially entrepreneurial manner within
a corporation, and who are motivated by a social
agenda (Hemingway, 2005). In each of these cases,
the authors propose that the generation of new value
occurs as collective interests become the focal point
of creative effort.
Section 6 highlights the commonality between
the domains of public and nonprofit management
and social issues in management. The overlap in
this conceptual domain concerns the execution of
social policies and programs by existing nonprofit
and public sector organizations. Zilber (2002), for
instance, examined how new hires associated with
a professional rather than feminist perspective in
an Israeli nonprofit rape crisis center brought about
the institutionalization of different organizational
practices that increased organizational legitimacy.
Another exemplar contribution in this conceptual
space is Egri and Herman’s (2000) finding that
leaders of environmentalist organizations are more
change oriented and more strongly concerned about
the welfare of others than are leaders of other types
of organizations; this work highlights environmen-
talist organizations as highly receptive contexts for
transformational leadership. Both of these studies
are confined to the context of nonprofit organiza-
tions that have a passion for improving the social
good, while lacking the new value creation motive
central to entrepreneurship research. As a result,
articles that fit within this area of conceptual
overlap were not included as a part of our
review.
In Section 7, the domain of social entrepreneur-
ship is informed by the overlapping of research in
entrepreneurship, public and nonprofit sectors, and
social issues in management. Research in this domain
focuses on creating and balancing both social and
economic new value to the benefit of collective,
rather than individual, interests. The distinctiveness
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172 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
of social entrepreneurship lies in using practices and
processes that are unique to entrepreneurship to
achieve aims that are distinctly social, regardless of
the presence or absence of a profit motive. Articles
in our sample that provided definitions to inform this
section include the earliest views of social entrepre-
neurship research as a subset of public policy
research. For example, Waddock and Post provided
the first definition of a social entrepreneur as ‘private
sector citizens who play critical roles in bringing
about ‘catalytic changes’ in the public sector agenda
and the perception of certain social issues’ (1991:
393). Roberts and King (1991) developed the idea
of entrepreneurial individuals who introduce and
help to implement new ideas into practice, despite
being outside of formal government positions.
Finally, Austin and colleagues’ (2006) characteriza-
tion of social entrepreneurship as innovative activi-
ties that create social value within or across
government, business, or nonprofit sectors all fits
within this conceptual space. They highlight differ-
ences between social entrepreneurship and commer-
cial entrepreneurship to help clarify conceptual
boundaries, including: (1) opportunity differences
due to market failure; (2) mission differences result-
ing in differences in management, motivation, and
tension between social and commercial activity; (3)
different approaches in managing financial and
human resources; and (4) performance measurement
in social ventures that complicates accountability
and stakeholder relations. In summary, the concep-
tual overlap of Sections 4, 5, and 7 presents social
value creation as combining resources to exploit
opportunities to solve social problems and contrib-
ute to human well being.
Section 8 highlights the influence of context on
social entrepreneurship research. In regard to the
greater entrepreneurship field, context pertains to
population start-up rates, as well as other cultural,
economic, or market factors (such as industry mem-
bership) that serve as catalysts for entrepreneurial
activities (Busenitz et al., 2003; Dess and Beard,
1984; Short et al., 2009). As presented in the strate-
gic management and entrepreneurship literatures,
organizations are impacted by specific factors often
associated with the industry level of analysis, such
as munificence, dynamism, and complexity (e.g.,
Castrogiovanni, 2002; Covin and Slevin, 1989). At
the national level of analysis, changes in technology
and international competition are also relevant areas
of interest (e.g., Bettis and Hitt, 1995; Martinez and
Jarillo, 1989).1
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Context also plays a key role in social entre-
preneurship research. For example, Austin and
colleagues (2006) argue that tax, regulatory,
sociocultural, demographic, political, and macroeco-
nomic factors all impact social entrepreneurship. In
Weerewardena and Mort’s (2006) multidimensional
model of social entrepreneurship, social value cre-
ation is constrained by a turbulent and dynamic
context that impacts venture performance and
resource acquisition. Finally, Spear and Bidet (2005)
show how the national context in which social ven-
tures operate has an effect on the type of social
enterprise chosen to address work integration of the
chronically unemployed. These social entrepreneur-
ship articles are representative of the role that context
plays in social entrepreneurship research today. The
context in which social ventures operate has direct
bearing on their ability to meet the dual mission of
creating social value while also creating a business
model that is financially stable and/or self-sustain-
ing. For example, Austin et al. (2006) suggest that
a harsh economic context increases the demand for
social services; at the same time, philanthropic dona-
tions are more difficult to procure in economically
challenging times. Thus, efforts to understand the
degree to which industry matters for the performance
of social entrepreneurial ventures could provide a
contribution to both strategic management and entre-
preneurship literatures (cf. Short et al., 2009).
Taken as a whole, Figure 1 informs social value
creation by indicating the boundary conditions of
social entrepreneurship research based on the social
entrepreneurship literature. The articles in our
sample related to sections 4, 5, and 7 because they
all addressed the creation of social value. We
contend that definitions contained in Sections 1, 2,
3, and 6 would not be considered within the domain
of social entrepreneurship. Overall, these areas of
conceptual space focus more on the maintenance of
social value (rather than its creation) or on the
creation of strictly economic value.
1
Our discussion of context in Section 8 refers to a number of
factors in the external business environment at various levels
of analysis (e.g., industry and or/national levels of analysis).
Certainly the natural environment is also a contextual influence
that may impact social entrepreneurship. For example, environ-
mental sustainability is an area of interest for many social
entrepreneurship scholars (cf., Dean and McMullen, 2007). As
such, the interests of the Organizations and the Natural Envi-
ronment (ONE) Division of the Academy of Management are
subsumed in Section 8 of Figure 1.
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DISCUSSION
Research in social entrepreneurship represents a
fruitful domain of interest to organizational scholars,
but much work remains to fully embrace and under-
stand this concept. In the early decades of this
research stream, knowledge has been based primar-
ily on case studies, where researchers have gathered
rich qualitative data. This has established social
entrepreneurship research in nonprofit and public
policy journals and allowed it to gain a foothold in
management and entrepreneurship outlets. However,
establishing clear construct legitimacy and boundar-
ies of the social entrepreneurship construct has been
minimal. As a scholarly field of inquiry, social entre-
preneurship is in a nascent stage of development.
To address how social entrepreneurship research can
move forward theoretically and empirically, we
build on the 10 key themes of interest to the field of
strategic entrepreneurship highlighted by Schendel
and Hitt (2007) in Table 3. We conclude our re-
view by outlining implications for theory building,
implications for theory testing, possibilities for
contributing to social entrepreneur research from a
multidisciplinary perspective, and implications for
practitioners.
Implications for theory building
To date, integration of theory has been underempha-
sized in social entrepreneurship research, with less
than a third of the articles in our review citing other
research streams as the basis for theory develop-
ment. Examples of theoretical bases in current efforts
include the communitarian perspective (Cornwall,
1998), institutional theory (Dart, 2004), structura-
tion theory and social capital (Mair and Marti, 2006),
and social network theory (Peredo and Chrisman,
2006). Noticeably absent from the streams inform-
ing social entrepreneurship research were manage-
ment theory mainstays, such as the resource-based
view, leadership, or configurations. In neglecting
to pursue explicit predictions informed by sound
theory, current conceptual research in social entre-
preneurship leaves the question of relationships
between constructs unanswered. While this result is
expected given the recent emergence of the field,
scholars will not accelerate progress until these theo-
retical relationships become more explicit. If the
social entrepreneurship field is to progress, the next
two decades should be characterized by unity in
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 173
construct definition and by examining the social
entrepreneurship construct through a variety of
established theoretical lenses.
The integration of strategy and entrepreneurship
creates customer value and gives firms resource
advantages over competing organizations (Schendel
and Hitt, 2007). Conceptual development in social
entrepreneurship may provide a unique context for
integrating strategy and entrepreneurship research
by enhancing understanding of how organizations
simultaneously create social value and achieve
competitive advantages. For example, the strategic
management literature has examined the role that
firm, strategic group, and industry levels play in
determining differences in firm performance (Short
et al., 2007). Scholars have called for extension of
this debate beyond traditional performance mea-
sures (e.g., Hawawini, Subramanian, and Verdin,
2003). Building theory concerning how social
entrepreneurship performance is driven by each of
these levels of analysis could provide insights to
both strategic management and entrepreneurship
literatures and extend the debate concerning the
degree to which firm and industry matters to per-
formance in the realm of social entrepreneurship.
For example, scholars have highlighted theoretical
perspectives that could inform our knowledge con-
cerning the failure of social venture franchises
(Tracey and Jarvis, 2007), and examining the degree
to which firm and industry levels impact the failure
of such franchises could extend the social entrepre-
neurship, strategic management, and entrepreneur-
ship fields.
Upper echelon theory is another perspective that
may inform future social entrepreneurship research.
The importance of a firm’s top management team
(TMT) to strategic decision making and, thus, the
performance of a firm, is at the core of upper echelon
theory (Hambrick, 2007; Hambrick and Mason,
1984). To date, research in social entrepreneurship
has generally focused on the founding entrepreneur,
while ignoring entrepreneurial teams or others sup-
porting the founder who are necessary for the success
of the organization (Light, 2006). Examining how
and why certain TMT characteristics lead to
increased social performance across organizational
types could provide a valuable theoretical contribu-
tion to research in strategic entrepreneurship.
Opportunities stem from imagination and cre-
ativity, leading to inventions and innovations
(Amabile, 1988). There are two leading perspec-
tives in opportunity research that could inform
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174 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin

Table 3. Social entrepreneurship research opportunities that focus on key themes in strategic entrepreneurship

SEJ theme Potential research Possible research questions Potential theories

focus on social for social
entrepreneurship entrepreneurship
research

Strategy vs. Social value Which entrepreneurial and strategic processes I/O economics
entrepreneurship creation are most effective for creating social value
across different social entrepreneurship
activities?
What characteristics of individuals and/or TMTs Upper echelon theory
are most effective in creating social value?
Creativity, Opportunity Does the unique experience of a social venture Creation theory
imagination, and creation and foster the creation of new opportunities?
opportunities discovery Do social entrepreneurs use opportunity Discovery theory
discovery processes in the same ways as
commercial entrepreneurs?
Risk and Risk taking in Do social ventures hold more conservative Prospect theory
uncertainty social ventures stances toward risk than commercial
ventures?
What factors play a role in enabling social Agency theory
entrepreneurs to take on greater risk?
Innovation Innovation Can social entrepreneurs create disruptive Disruptive innovation
management in innovations in the commercial sector? theory
social ventures Do the same factors that promote concurrent Ambidexterity
incremental and revolutionary changes in
commercial ventures apply in social ventures?
Change Effects of change In what ways do social innovation processes Resource dependence
processes on change the ventures creating the innovations?
social ventures What factors contribute to growth in social Contingency theory
ventures and are they similar to growth
factors in commercial ventures?
Technology Role of technology In what ways do technologies provide Resource-based view
in creating competitive advantages in social ventures?
social value What elements of effective technology
utilization do social ventures have in common
with commercial ventures?
Entrepreneurial Diffusion of social Do social ventures view diffusion differently Diffusion theory
actions, innovations than commercial ventures?
innovation, and What conditions most influence social ventures’ Resource dependence
appropriability efforts to erect barriers to diffusion?
Behavioral Processes Are the motivations/drivers of social venture Goal setting theory
characteristics underlying creation the same as or different from those of
of social venture traditional venture creation?
entrepreneurial formation Which dimensions of an entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial
activity orientation are key to effective social orientation
venturing?

Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej
 Research in Social Entrepreneurship 175

Table 3. Continued

SEJ theme Potential research Possible research questions Potential theories

focus on social for social
entrepreneurship entrepreneurship
research

Entrepreneurship Relationship What institutional and/or national culture forces Cultural values
and economic between uniquely promote social entrepreneurship?
growth institutions What principles of institutional change can Research on national
and social foster both social entrepreneurship and political
entrepreneurship commercial entrepreneurship? institutional
structures
Social role of Simultaneous What strategic and managerial consequences Stewardship theory
entrepreneurship production of flow from social entrepreneurs’ urge to satisfy
economic and both economic and social objectives?
social value Do customers perceive the value created by Attribution theory
commercial and social ventures that serve the
same markets in the same way?

social entrepreneurship research (Alvarez and
Barney, 2007). The first, opportunity creation
theory, asserts that opportunities do not exist inde-
pendent of the entrepreneur, but rather are created
by the actions, reactions, and enactment of entre-
preneurs as they explore new ways to generate new
products or services (e.g., Eckhardt and Shane,
2003). According to this view, entrepreneurs cannot
search for opportunities, but rather act and observe
the effects of their actions. We found no social
entrepreneurship articles that portrayed opportuni-
ties based on creation theory, and we believe such
efforts could fill both conceptual and empirical
gaps in social entrepreneurship research. A second
view on entrepreneurial opportunities presupposes
that opportunities exist out there and need only to
be discovered by an entrepreneur in order to be
exploited (e.g., Sarason, Dean, and Dillard, 2006).
In discovery theory, entrepreneurs are assumed to
be quite different from nonentrepreneurs and, as a
result, are able to detect an opportunity where
others would not (Alvarez and Barney, 2007).
Recent work incorporates both perspectives and
suggests that social entrepreneurs use satisficing,
rather than profit maximization, to recognize social
opportunities because the value of these opportuni-
ties is difficult to quantify (Zahra et al., 2008).
New theoretical developments may be attained by
conceptually integrating Roberts and Greenwood’s
(1997) constraints grounded in institutional
theory, which would suggest that normative expec-
tations and sociopolitical legitimacy may negatively
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
affect the recognition or exploitation of social
opportunities.
Innovation is a key precursor to change and is
necessary for the continued success of an organiza-
tion (Tushman and Anderson, 2004). Innovation is
a key theme in social entrepreneurship research, but
more effort is needed to build social entrepreneur-
ship-related innovation theory. Disruptive innova-
tion theory explains how expensive, complicated
products and services are often supplanted by inex-
pensive, simple ones when capabilities of cutting-
edge innovations overshoot the demands of existing
customers (Christensen, 1997). For example, Bene-
tech is a nonprofit Silicon Valley organization that
produces a range of technology products to meet its
social mission. Due to Benetech’s social mission,
these products are of necessity simpler and less
expensive than similar products in the marketplace
(Perry, 2006). Benetech may eventually create a dis-
ruptive innovation that effectively meets the needs
of more demanding consumers, allowing its prod-
ucts to supplant more expensive commercial prod-
ucts in the marketplace. Although commercial
enterprises are continually engaging in social entre-
preneurship initiatives, future research could study
social ventures like Benetech to gain theoretical
insights concerning the unique role social innova-
tions may play in disrupting competition in the
greater market as an increased number of social
ventures compete in the for-profit sector.
Applying stewardship theory to social entrepre-
neurship research may reveal new insights and help
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176 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
build theory regarding how social ventures are
different from commercial ventures. Stewardship
theory asserts that upper-level managers are intrinsi-
cally motivated to act in the best interests of their
principals and perceive greater utility in an involve-
ment-oriented management philosophy, thus direct-
ing their efforts toward organizational, rather than
personal, objectives (Davis, Schoorman, and Don-
aldson, 1997). These tenets of stewardship theory
naturally describe social entrepreneurs, who place
high importance on collaboration, trust in the com-
munity, and a long-term orientation (Brennan and
Ackers, 2004; Purdue, 2001; Vasakarla, 2008).
However, such behaviors may be in tension with the
economic demands of starting and managing a new
social venture. To the extent that the need to become
economically sustainable overrides the social aspects
of the venture, it may promote behaviors aligned
with agency theory’s assumptions of a shorter-term
perspective and a control-oriented management phi-
losophy. For example, the tensions in balancing eco-
nomic and social returns are very real for for-profit
social entrepreneurs who rely on venture capitalist
funding (Harjula, 2006). Thus, theory building in
social entrepreneurship could benefit from exploring
the strategic and managerial consequences of trying
to concurrently satisfy economic and social objec-
tives. Future theoretical questions could examine the
social and market returns of social enterprises at the
firm, industry, and national levels.
Implications for theory testing
The first 18 years of social entrepreneurship research
have been characterized by a preponderance of qual-
itative studies. Such contributions are valuable in the
early stages of a field of inquiry, as case studies can
be especially valuable when developing and refining
theory (Eisenhardt, 1989). In addition, qualitative
methods are also associated with groundbreaking
insights. For example, such methods have been used
to develop and/or test theory in 12 out of the top 17
most interesting articles in the management field
(Bartunek, Rynes, and Ireland, 2006). Thus, future
efforts in social entrepreneurship should continue to
build on qualitative methods and case studies, and
we encourage researchers to build on previous efforts
in this tradition with the goal of producing rigorous
qualitative works that could target top journals in
management and entrepreneurship.
To build on the current foundation of inductive
research in social entrepreneurship, in the next 18
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
years we see a prime opportunity for more rigorous
theory testing using quantitative methods. Indeed, as
Van de Ven and Johnson (2006) suggest, a variety
of methods and models increases validity, reliability,
and learning; comparing and contrasting different
perspectives is required to discriminate between
error, noise, and robust information about complex
problems. Van de Ven and Johnson’s (2006) call for
engaged scholarship is especially relevant for an
applied field like social entrepreneurship. Thus,
rigorous inductive and deductive studies will be
beneficial to progressing the field of social
entrepreneurship.
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing scholars and
doctoral students wishing to engage in social entre-
preneurship research is data collection and measure-
ment. In particular, sampling decisions have been
demonstrated to be key in uncovering linkages
between strategic phenomena and organizational
performance (Short et al., 2002), and such decisions
may also impact our knowledge of the determinants
of the performance of social enterprises. Accessing
large-scale databases has been particularly challeng-
ing when researching social entrepreneurship; cre-
ative solutions are needed to provide the adequate
sample sizes necessary to utilize rigorous application
of multivariate techniques. A number of potential
sources of social entrepreneurship data and measure-
ment could be used in future research efforts to allow
for more rigorous statistics using larger scale data-
bases. Reputation and rankings measures may be
useful sources of empirical measurement for future
empirical efforts. For example, Fast Company mag-
azine’s Social Capitalist Awards provide informa-
tion on social enterprises based on 15 scores in five
performance categories. Recent results were pub-
lished for 45 nonprofit winners; for the first time, the
magazine also rated for-profit firms on the same
methodology and found 10 that passed (Hammonds,
2007). With a database for all Fast Company appli-
cants over time, panel studies to study social respon-
sibility with improved sample sizes (and statistical
power) over previous efforts would be possible. The
inclusion of for-profit firms in the awards recognizes
that social entrepreneurship practice is penetrating
the traditional business sector, rather than being a
strictly nonprofit phenomenon, and could provide
the basis for empirical research across multiple
industry sectors. In addition to data provided by Fast
Company, the Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneur-
ship provide another potentially valuable source to
identify and track information on social enterprises.
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One fruitful avenue for future empirical efforts
involves elaborating on measurable social outcomes
that are suggested by defining social entrepreneur-
ship in terms of creating new social value. A key
distinction between entrepreneurship and social
entrepreneurship relates to differences in the goals
and aspirations that drive each type of organization.
Such different aims account for much of the vari-
ability in definitions of social entrepreneurship. For
example, recent work by Dean and McMullen (2007)
addresses issues of entrepreneurship and environ-
mental sustainability. Environmental sustainability
is one of several social purposes identified as a key
area of interest in social entrepreneurship research
(e.g., Weerawardena and Mort, 2006). Others include
supporting and/or donating to social causes (e.g.,
Barman, 2002; Lowell, Trelstad, and Meehan, 2005);
community enhancement efforts (e.g., Anderson,
Dana, and Dana, 2006; Thompson, 2002), innova-
tions intended to address social needs (e.g., Alvord,
Brown, and Letts, 2004; Borins, 2000; Perry, 2006),
and policy making designed to bring about social
change (e.g., Korosec and Berman, 2006; Roberts
and King, 1991). Future studies could assess if dif-
ferences exist between the metrics used by organi-
zational scholars in empirical research efforts as
compared to the performance measures highlighted
by social enterprises in organizational mission state-
ments or other organizational narratives (cf., Palmer
and Short, 2008). For example, scholars could use
semiotics analysis to examine the meanings that
certain individuals attach to the words social and
entrepreneurship.
Understanding the impact of risk and uncertainty
on organizational processes and outcomes is of
interest to researchers in strategic entrepreneurship
(Schendel and Hitt, 2007). Prospect theory—used to
explain human behavior under risk conditions and
in which individuals in favorable conditions are
more risk averse than those in unfavorable condi-
tions (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979)—could inform
risk-related social entrepreneurship research. Apply-
ing prospect theory logic to social entrepreneurship
may be of interest to scholars who suggest that social
entrepreneurs are more risk averse than commercial
entrepreneurs because of their focus on the survival
of the organization and their relative lack of funding
options (Weerawardena and Mort, 2006). By con-
trast, other social entrepreneurship studies suggest
that one of the key characteristics of social entrepre-
neurs is that they are high risk takers (Vasakarla,
2008). An empirical examination of the risk
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Research in Social Entrepreneurship 177
tendencies of social entrepreneurs could shed light
on the social entrepreneurship phenomena and
potentially highlight whether differences exist in
the risk propensities of social and commercial
entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurial activity and strategic decision
making are influenced by the behavioral processes
and characteristics of individuals and groups
(Stevenson and Jarillo, 1990). Entrepreneurial pro-
cesses that have been applied to commercial entre-
preneurship, such as entrepreneurial orientation
(EO), may also inform social entrepreneurship
research. An EO is concerned with a firm’s pro-
cesses of new entry, as well as the practices and
decision-making styles used to pursue entrepreneur-
ial objectives, and is associated with individual and
organizational attributes, such as autonomy, proac-
tiveness, competitive aggressiveness, innovative-
ness, and risk taking (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). The
elements of EO have been shown to relate positively
to the performance of a wide range of firms (Rauch
et al., 2009). However, no social entrepreneurship
empirical study has examined EO directly. Com-
parative research using techniques like interviews,
surveys, or content analysis of organizational narra-
tives would reveal if EO dimensions are common
between both commercial and social entrepreneurs,
and which factors are most associated with organi-
zational performance differences among each type
of firm.
Multidisciplinary influences on
social entrepreneurship
To examine potential avenues for future research in
social entrepreneurship that encompass the bound-
ary conditions described in Figure 1, we examine
each of the disciplines highlighted in Ireland and
Webb’s (2007) review of entrepreneurship. These
disciplines span a number of fields and include
accounting, anthropology, economics, finance, man-
agement, marketing, operations management, politi-
cal science, psychology, and sociology. In Table 4,
we highlight how each field could inform research
in social entrepreneurship and suggest future research
questions that could address gaps in the literature by
incorporating a number of the theoretical perspec-
tives from Table 3.
Accounting
Social entrepreneurship articles published in
accounting journals were absent from our review,
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178 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
Table 4. Future social entrepreneurship research opportunities incorporating other disciplines
Field Potential focus of research on
social entrepreneurship
Accounting Generalizable standards for
assessing performance across
social ventures
Anthropology The relationship between cultural
contexts and social
entrepreneurship
Economics The relationship between social
entrepreneurship and economic
growth
Finance Funding opportunities and
constraints for starting and
sustaining social ventures
Management The role of leadership in fostering
social entrepreneurship values
and ventures
Marketing Social entrepreneurship
marketing practices
Operations management Components of social
entrepreneurship
value chains
Political science The influence of legislation and
national policy on social
entrepreneurship
Psychology The relationship between social
entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurial cognition
Sociology Societal impact of social
entrepreneurship
initiatives
suggesting that editorial boards in this field may not
be interested in firms without a dominant profit
motive, or that they prefer works that focus on more
traditional accounting-based performance measures.
Two streams of accounting-based entrepreneurship
research noted by Ireland and Webb (2007) could
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Possible research questions
Which methods (e.g., balanced scorecard, triple
bottom line) are best suited for measuring the
performance of social enterprises?
Is there a difference in the meaning and function of
social entrepreneurship across cultural boundaries?
Which theories and tools can best enable social
entrepreneurship to be studied at macrolevels of
analysis?
How can social entrepreneurship activities be
measured to enable economic analysis?
What sources of start-up funding lead to greater
formation rates in nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid
social entrepreneurship organizations?
What are the greatest barriers to social
entrepreneurship funding?
Which leadership styles most effectively facilitate
social entrepreneurship decision processes and
outcomes?
How do the four Ps or four Cs of marketing impact
the goals of social ventures?
What operating efficiency factors most affect the
social entrepreneurship value chain?
How can systems dynamics approaches be used to
model social entrepreneurship value-adding
activities?
Which type of national political structures most
impact social entrepreneurship effectiveness?
Which practices enable social entrepreneurship to be
robust in the face of political corruption?
Are certain personality characteristics uniquely
associated with social entrepreneurs?
Which institutional forces play the largest role in the
emergence of social entrepreneurship in mature
fields?
What factors most impact social innovation
diffusion?
hold promise for social entrepreneurship scholars.
The first stream—relating information disclosure to
existing or potential owners and stakeholders—could
be applied to venture philanthropy and foundations
that require information transparency as a condition
of funding, as well as public sector organizations
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that are becoming increasingly transparent in order
to secure government funding (Llewellyn and
Tappin, 2003). Transparency may be especially
important in certain countries, like the U.S., where
information disclosures for nonprofits regarding the
disbursement of their profits are among government
filing requirements necessary to obtain nonprofit
status (Lasprogata and Cotton, 2003). Hand (2005)
found that transparency of nonfinancial information,
such as patents and alliances, in nascent biotech
firms is more strongly related to increased IPO valu-
ation than financial information. Applying the same
logic to social entrepreneurship, young social ven-
tures that provide transparent nonfinancial informa-
tion (such as their social networks, alliances, and
strategies) may be perceived by foundations, gov-
ernments, and philanthropic venture capitalists as
providing more value and, thus, may be more suc-
cessful in acquiring funding than social ventures that
focus solely on providing financial information to
potential funding sources. Prospect theory also pro-
vides a useful theoretical perspective in this context,
in that social entrepreneurs with more conservative
views on risk may manifest lower levels of transpar-
ency and disclosure regarding their ventures so as to
limit losses that may come as a result of such
disclosure.
The second accounting-related stream that may
inform social entrepreneurship research involves
measurement processes that promote entrepreneurial
activities. To date, there is no consensus as to
accounting standards that would be generalizable
across social ventures. While not appearing in
accounting journals, some research extends account-
ing principles by applying them to nonfinancial mea-
sures of performance. For example, accounting
standards may be informed by the joint-stake
company system of accounting, which encompasses
multiple stakeholders rather than simply financial
performance for shareholders (Agle et al., 2008).
Such a system could be the start of a universal move-
ment that would enable consistent measurement of
social value creation that might also include eco-
nomic measures. The balanced scorecard has also
been used for measuring performance in nonprofit
organizations. More recently, it has been recom-
mended as a measurement tool to assess the impact
of social enterprises that must meet social as well as
financial performance targets (Darby and Jenkins,
2006; Kaplan, 2001). Researchers have shown that
intangible assets increase the survival of subsidiaries
in new markets because they extend knowledge-
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 179
based advantages and improve economies of scope
(Delios and Beamish, 2001). Therefore, accounting
for intangible assets in social value creation, while
enabling broad comparison across social ventures,
could also answer the question of how scholars
and policy makers could evaluate the impact and
growth potential of solutions posed by social
entrepreneurs.
Anthropology
Three themes in anthropology journals related to
entrepreneurship include national identity, cultural
and ethnic nuances of entrepreneurship, and entre-
preneurial activity outside of institutional boundar-
ies (Ireland and Webb, 2007). Although only one
social entrepreneurship article appeared in an anthro-
pology journal, social entrepreneurship research has
made ample use of ethnographic methods, a key
contribution of the anthropology field to entrepre-
neurship research (Stewart, 1991). For example,
many authors of the empirical articles in our sample
used semistructured ethnographic interviews (68%)
and observation (14%) to collect their data. Due to
the presence of social entrepreneurship activities in
a wide range of settings, from struggling emerging
nations to global economic leaders, cultural and
ethnic nuances of social entrepreneurship seem to be
an especially fertile area for future research. For
example, indigenous peoples of Canada place an
inseparable link between land rights and their people,
culture, and identity as a nation and, thus, traditional
lands and resources play a large role in business
development. The wealth generated from these ven-
tures is reinvested into the community through activ-
ities like creating nature preserves; such job creation
leads to further reductions in long-term unemploy-
ment (Anderson et al., 2006). Indigenous social
entrepreneurship, therefore, reflects cultural values
that promote social and economic value creation in
a unique context.
Although the empirical articles in our review were
nationally diverse, sampling 34 different countries,
most of the articles were concerned with finding
generalizations of social entrepreneurship indepen-
dent of culture. Since cultural and ethnic nuances are
a key theme in the anthropology literature on entre-
preneurship, the lack of social entrepreneurship
articles that examine cultural nuances suggests
opportunities for studies that explore national cul-
tural and identity differences within and between
social ventures. For instance, Latino entrepreneurs
in Washington, D.C., have been found to identify
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180 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
more with their national identity (Chilean, Colum-
bian, etc.) than with a Latin American identity,
resulting in cooperation with others sharing the same
national identity and competition with those of other
national identities (Pessar, 1995). Future studies in
social entrepreneurship could likewise examine the
impact of identity on cooperation and competition
among social ventures serving distinct ethnic groups
in culturally diverse regions. Perhaps a social ven-
ture’s mission to improve social ills common to
various identity groups would promote greater coop-
eration and less competition between these groups,
suggesting an interaction between a social identity
and a business identity within social ventures. This
idea of multiple identities impacting social ventures
is supported by recent work which indicates that
congruence between multiple organizational identi-
ties impacts perceptions of organizational legitimacy
(Foreman and Whetten, 2002).
Economics
Economics journals publishing entrepreneurship
research comprised 22 percent of the articles identi-
fied by Ireland and Webb (2007) in their review of
entrepreneurship research that covered areas such as
institutional factors and entrepreneurship; entrepre-
neurship and economic growth; and the use of
econometrics to quantify theoretical relationships. In
our social entrepreneurship review, 9 percent of the
articles hailed from economics journals, suggesting
that the field of economics has great potential to
inform research on social entrepreneurship. For
example, scholars have suggested that some institu-
tional policies, such as progressive taxation—in
which wealth is redistributed from those better off
to those worse off—have a negative impact on entre-
preneurial activity within a country because of the
resultant reduction in wealth appropriated by the
entrepreneur (Gentry and Hubbard, 2000). Other
institutional policies, such as patent regulations that
reward inventors who do not have the means to
directly exploit the patents themselves, encourage
entrepreneurial activity (Khan and Sokoloff, 2004).
Researchers have yet to fully explore the impact of
similar institutional policies on social entrepreneur-
ship. The logics employed by Gentry and Hubbard
(2000) and Khan and Sokoloff (2004) assume a
profit motive as the core of entrepreneurial activity.
However, these logics may not apply to social entre-
preneurs, who continue their socially entrepreneurial
activities regardless of wealth appropriation because
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
social entrepreneurs are driven more by social
mission than by a profit motive (Dees and Elias,
1998). As a result, the economic models that policy
makers use to promote entrepreneurship may not
have the same effect on social entrepreneurship.
Given that social entrepreneurship is sometimes
viewed as a subset of entrepreneurship, policymak-
ers and scholars may mistakenly believe that strate-
gies and processes conducive to entrepreneurship
will also promote social entrepreneurship. There-
fore, we suggest that future scholars apply an I/O
economics lens to study the effects of economic
policies on both types of organizations.
There was only one article in an economics journal
that related social entrepreneurship to economic
growth and none that used econometrics to describe
social entrepreneurship. Clearly there is a wealth of
future research opportunities here (Baron, 2007).
For example, Paulson, Townsend, and Karaivanov
(2006) found that moral hazard regarding entrepre-
neurial effort is the dominant source of credit market
imperfections for Thai entrepreneurs. To relate
moral hazard to entrepreneurship, Paulson and col-
leagues suggest that since repayment is possible
only if a project is successful and entrepreneurial
effort is unobserved, poor borrowers have little
incentive to be diligent and, therefore, will have
higher default rates due to project failure. The moral
hazard assumption seems to reflect the attitude of
banks prior to the rise of microcredit lending institu-
tions, whose founders are portrayed as entrepreneurs
who promote the social good (Gangemi, 2006). If
the moral hazard assumption in agency theory inad-
equately explains social entrepreneurship, then other
economic theories are required to gain further
insight. Karlan (2005) has provided a starting point
by showing that high individual-level social capital
is related to low default rates in a microcredit context
using experimental economics. Extending his work
from the micro- to the macrolevel is one area that
may provide further insights into social entrepre-
neurship and the greater economics and manage-
ment literatures.
Finance
Ireland and Webb (2007) report that the majority of
finance research that concerns entrepreneurship is in
the area of IPO characteristics and the actual acquisi-
tion of financial resources; a smaller set of studies
has primarily examined internal capital markets and
the outcomes of restructuring actions. Given the
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primary focus on IPOs, it is perhaps not surprising
that social entrepreneurship is under-researched in
finance journals. The lone social entrepreneurship
article published in a finance journal discusses social
venture capital (Silby, 1997), which is related to the
acquisition of financial resources. Considering that
some of the most successful social entrepreneurship
projects involve creative financing solutions and pro-
viding resources to high-risk borrowers (e.g., Yunus
and the Grameen Bank), there is clearly a need to
expand research into the role of financing. Thus,
more research into the various ways social ventures
are financed is warranted, especially given the variety
of organizational forms (nonprofit, government, etc.)
that engage in social entrepreneurship. Resource
dependence theory may provide a fruitful starting
point to explain the importance of financing in rela-
tion to other types of resources needed to ensure
social venture viability and success.
Management
Ireland and Webb (2007) found that 32 percent of
entrepreneurship articles in their sample were in
management journals. They found research streams
related to individual entrepreneurs, new ventures,
corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orienta-
tion, institutional entrepreneurship, and IPOs. Man-
agement journals have also published the bulk of
social entrepreneurship research to date (25%), and
when viewing entrepreneurship journals as a subset
of management research, this percentage is even
higher (36%). Despite the considerable contribu-
tions emanating from the management field, a
number of prominent research streams within man-
agement have not yet been addressed by social entre-
preneurship scholars. Much of the research on social
entrepreneurship has focused on the heroic individ-
ual social entrepreneur, while research concerning
group efforts that contribute to the success of social
ventures is often overlooked (Light, 2006). Cohen
and Bailey’s (1997) call for additional research in
the areas of group cognition and affect; collective
efficacy and group potency; virtual and global teams;
and environmental factors could all contribute new
insights to research in social entrepreneurship. Lon-
gitudinal studies could easily be tested in the social
entrepreneurship context, where employee attitudes
and behaviors may be more accessible than in for-
profit firms. Social entrepreneurship may also
provide a unique context in which to study virtual
teams, or teams whose members use technology to
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 181
cross geographic, temporal, and relational boundar-
ies (Martins, Gilson, and Maynard, 2004). Given
that some social ventures, such as Accion Interna-
tional, operate their organization in multiple coun-
tries, social ventures may provide a fertile context
in which to study virtual team inputs (diversity, team
size, member characteristics, leadership, organiza-
tional context), processes (planning, action, interper-
sonal factors), and outcomes (behavioral and
performance in areas of knowledge management,
team creativity, team learning). Martins and col-
leagues (2004) have highlighted each of these areas
as requiring further attention, providing social entre-
preneurship scholars an opportunity to contribute to
the broader management literature.
Social entrepreneurship organizations may benefit
from the use of human resource management prac-
tices—such as hiring employees with egalitarian
attitudes—that have been argued to reduce stigma
and its negative effects within organizations (Kulik,
Bainbridge, and Cregan, 2008). As many social ven-
tures often work with stigmatized groups (such as
the poor, homeless, or mentally disabled), social
ventures could provide a useful context for empirical
efforts examining hiring practices of for-profit and
not-for-profit social, ventures. Social ventures could
also prove fertile ground to empirically test Ashforth
and Kreiner’s (1999) suggestion that members of
stigmatized occupations who perform dirty work,
such as funeral directors, butchers, and executioners,
create a strong culture to counteract the personal
impact of the stigma. Given that many social ven-
tures employ as well as serve people who may be
stigmatized, it could be fruitful to both the social
entrepreneurship and management literatures to
study the specific human resource policies and prac-
tices in social ventures, as well as the impact of such
practices on organizational culture.
Examination of leadership in social ventures has
received little attention in social entrepreneurship
research to date, and was the focus of only three
articles in our review (Emerson, 1999; Prabhu, 1999;
Rego and Bhandary, 2006). The idea of authentic
leadership—defined as leader behavior that pro-
motes relational transparency with followers, an
internalized moral perspective, balanced informa-
tion processing, and greater self-awareness leading
to positive self-development—may be particularly
relevant to the social welfare characteristic of social
entrepreneurship research (Walumbwa et al., 2008).
Walumbwa and colleagues found a positive relation-
ship between authentic leadership and leader
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182 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
performance, as well as work-related behaviors and
attitudes, such as organizational commitment, orga-
nizational citizenship behaviors, and follower satis-
faction with the leader. Future research in the social
entrepreneurship context could examine the rela-
tionship between authentic leadership, stewardship
theory, and organization-level outcomes (such as
social and economic firm performance), as well as
moderators of this relationship (such as strategy,
firm resources, culture, or environmental munifi-
cence and dynamism).
Marketing
Ireland and Webb (2007) report that journals in the
marketing field comprised 10 percent of their sample
and featured four streams related to entrepreneur-
ship, including innovation, innovation diffusion,
market or strategic orientation, and franchising. In
our review, we found nine articles (6%) that were
published in marketing journals. While innovative-
ness has been identified as a key factor in many
social entrepreneurship articles (e.g., Alvord et al.,
2004; Weerawardena and Mort, 2006), an analysis
of marketing staples, such as the four Ps (product,
price, place, promotion) and four Cs (concept, cost,
channel, communication) has yet to be fully explored.
The concept of social venture franchising has drawn
from theoretical bases like agency theory and
resource scarcity theory (e.g., Tracey and Jarvis,
2007), and building on this work to understand how
marketing impacts the franchising success of social
enterprises is a fruitful area for future theoretical and
empirical efforts.
Operations management
Operations journals have not been represented in
social entrepreneurship research to date, compared
with 6 percent of entrepreneurship articles in Ireland
and Webb’s (2007) review. This may stem simply
from the lack of quantitative data that is typically
used in operations research in areas such as optimi-
zation, simulation, and stochastic modeling. Ireland
and Webb (2007) note that the contribution of opera-
tions management to entrepreneurship research
enhanced our understanding of the internal processes
of a firm, and two streams related to entrepreneur-
ship include process design and the diffusion of
innovations. Regarding process design, Tatikonda
and Rosenthal (2000) found that formality, project
management autonomy, and resource flexibility
contribute to project execution success, and they
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
suggest that organizations can balance firmness and
flexibility in their efforts to create new value. While
these three factors are important, how firms can
effectively adopt, evaluate, and continuously
improve them is still unexplored. Firmness and flex-
ibility are characteristics of ambidextrous organiza-
tions, and may also inform future social
entrepreneurship studies. Ambidextrous organiza-
tions are able to concurrently compete in a market
characterized by low cost, efficiency, and incremen-
tal innovation while also having the flexibility
needed to develop new products and services that
rely on radical innovation (Tushman and O’Reilly,
1996). Vega (2006) presents an example of firmness
and flexibility in social entrepreneurship studies.
She relates the struggles of one social venture with
process issues, such as keeping volunteers informed,
maintaining schedules while preventing volunteer
burnout, organizing trucks and storage, and manag-
ing the venture while organizational members con-
tinue to maintain their current employment. As this
example illustrates, balancing firmness with flexibil-
ity has implications for social ventures that fre-
quently rely on volunteer labor. Systems dynamics
may provide some answers, as research in this area
shows how system structures, policies, decisions,
and delays interact to influence growth and stability
and, thus, aid process evaluation and improvement
(Forrester, 1961). Applying a systems dynamics per-
spective could, therefore, open new doors for
increasing our knowledge of the social entrepreneur-
ship phenomenon that also informs the operations
management literature.
In the area of innovation diffusion, Kumar and
Swaminathan (2003) propose a model in which the
diffusion of a firm’s innovations is limited by the
constraints of the firm’s supply base, which may be
overcome by stockpiling inventory for an optimal
period before diffusing the innovation in the market-
place. They suggest that to do so effectively, firms
require knowledge of diffusion factors like market
potential, word of mouth, and the mass media.
Systems dynamics has also been used to gain further
insights into diverse research streams such as tech-
nology diffusion, advertising effectiveness, and
forecasting (Richardson and Otto, 2008). As social
entrepreneurship researchers begin to model social
entrepreneurship innovation diffusion using systems
dynamics simulations, they will be able to test what-
if scenarios to better determine the possible system
outcomes, as well as the impact of constraints on the
system.
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DOI: 10.1002/sej

Political science
The field of political science informs entrepreneur-
ship in two ways: (1) by highlighting the role of
entrepreneurial policy makers who identify opportu-
nities and then gather resources to exploit them; and
(2) by describing the creation of policies that define
institutional boundaries (Ireland and Webb, 2007).
Our finding that research in social entrepreneurship
already draws considerably from the political science
domain (10% of the articles in our review versus 4%
in Ireland and Webb’s review), suggests that the
political science field holds a number of potential
insights for social entrepreneurship policy and prac-
tice. For example, Spear and Bidet (2005) found that
social ventures across Europe are impacted by
national differences in labor policies, unemployment
rates, and long-term structural unemployment.
Scholars have argued that differences in national
political structures based on differences in societies’
tendencies to cooperate or compete—as well as the
degree to which authority is derived from either
society or the state—could aid in our understanding
of how governments matter to industry creation and
innovation (Spencer, Murtha, and Lenway, 2005).
Research to date has not validated such arguments
through empirical tests. Empirical studies could use
the typology presented by Spencer and colleagues
(2005) coupled with contingency theory to explain
how differences in national political structures
impact social entrepreneurship viability and
performance, as well as other salient national level
outcomes like innovation and new venture
creation.
Psychology
To date, the primary contribution of the psychology
field to research in entrepreneurship has involved
highlighting the unique personality traits of entre-
preneurs (Ireland and Webb, 2007). Although eight
social entrepreneurship articles described the char-
acteristics of social entrepreneurs (e.g., Dearlove,
2004; Vasakarla, 2008; Vega and Kidwell, 2007),
there were no psychology journals represented in
our review. Given that the psychology field has been
identified as the second-largest contributor to entre-
preneurship research (Baum et al., 2007), we find
the lack of social entrepreneurship research in this
domain surprising. A number of studies in the psy-
chology literature have examined personality and
entrepreneurship (e.g., Stewart and Roth, 2001;
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 183
Zhao and Seibert, 2006). For example, Zhao and
Seibert’s (2006) meta-analysis of the Big Five per-
sonality dimensions and entrepreneurial status found
that entrepreneurs scored higher on Conscientious-
ness and Openness to Experience, and lower on
Neuroticism and Agreeableness with inconclusive
results for Extraversion. They propose that future
research could focus on moderators of the personal-
ity-entrepreneurial status relationship (such as type
of new venture), and contributions could also be
made by examining if different personality traits are
more important in different phases of the entrepre-
neurship process. Thus, social entrepreneurship
scholars could contribute to the greater psychology
research on personality by examining social entre-
preneurs in different types of social ventures, or
through longitudinal studies during different phases
of social venture start-ups to detect changes in the
types of traits that lead to social entrepreneurship
success. Coupling traits with goal setting theory is
one example of how motivations may moderate the
relationship between traits and overall social venture
success or success in different phases of venture
start-up.
Sociology
Research in sociology has historically informed four
streams of entrepreneurship research: entrepreneur-
ship within ethnic minority groups, organizational
networks, innovation diffusion, and the impact of
institutional forces (Ireland and Webb, 2007). Our
sample of social entrepreneurship articles in sociol-
ogy journals had a similar proportion to that of entre-
preneurship articles (5% and 4%, respectively),
covering similar streams, implying that sociology is
impacting both commercial and social entrepreneur-
ship. For example, concerning organizational net-
works and institutional forces, Ruef, Aldrich, and
Carter (2003) have shown how the tendency to asso-
ciate with similar others has the most pronounced
effect on the composition of entrepreneurial found-
ing teams. They recommend future longitudinal
studies to examine evolutionary group composition
(e.g., who leaves, who stays, who is added) and other
mechanisms that might affect this process. An exam-
ination of network and institutional forces on evolu-
tionary group composition of the founding teams
of social ventures could answer Light’s (2006) call
for research beyond founding social entrepreneurs
themselves and could contribute to both social entre-
preneurship and sociology.
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej
184 J. C. Short, T. W. Moss, and G. T. Lumpkin
The socioemotional wealth perspective found in
Gómez-Mejía et al. (2007) could also contribute an
interesting perspective on social entrepreneurship
and sociology. In a social entrepreneurship context,
socioemotional wealth refers to nonfinancial aspects
that meet the affective needs of venture members,
such as identity, ability to exercise influence for
positive social change, and the perpetuation of the
venture’s mission. Although financial returns are
necessary for the survival of ventures like family
firms, they are not necessarily the preeminent metric
used by organizational members when making stra-
tegic decisions (e.g., Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007).
Socioemotional wealth may, therefore, broadly
explain a number of nonfinancial factors that are
vital to the viability and long-term success of social
ventures.
Future social entrepreneurship scholars could also
study Wejnert’s (2002) review on innovation diffu-
sion in Annual Review of Sociology to systematically
identify and test factors of innovation characteris-
tics, characteristics of innovators themselves, and
the environmental contexts that most effectively
promote and hinder the diffusion of social innova-
tions. She noted that future studies in innovation
diffusion should examine interactions of these
factors to identify potentiating or mitigating combi-
nations, opening the door for multiple contributions.
Given the various mechanisms for scaling social
ventures, such as dissemination, affiliation, and
branding (Dees, Anderson, and Wei-Skillern, 2004),
successful diffusion of social innovations may also
vary based on Weinert’s (2002) factors in ways that
have yet to be fully explored.
Implications for practitioners
Social entrepreneurship research is shifting from a
primary focus on public policy concerns to become
a more central topic in the business literature. Efforts
among for-profit businesses to pursue business
opportunities with missions deemed beneficial to the
social good is one reason interest in social entrepre-
neurship research has flourished. For example, recent
efforts by companies to “go green” and improve
energy efficiency not only improve perceptions of
corporate citizenship in the eyes of consumers, but
may also provide avenues for substantial profitability
as demand for more green products increases (Clark,
2007). Such initiatives are not limited to new orga-
nizations; established companies aiming to satisfy
existing customers by seeking socially minded
Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
opportunities have also raised interest in under-
standing the social entrepreneurship phenomena.
A key finding of our review is that prior social
entrepreneurship research has largely focused on
nonprofit and public policy issues, with relatively
few efforts from top management journals. One
reason why interest in social entrepreneurship
research emerged in the nonprofit and public policy
literatures is the trend among nonprofits to seek
revenue-generating opportunities. Entrepreneurship
is viewed as a key means by which such organiza-
tions can enhance their ability to add value through
innovation and business savvy. A related trend is
that using entrepreneurial practices can lead to
greater economic efficiencies. The adoption of entre-
preneurial practices is especially attractive given
that many public service or social program settings
are often highly resource constrained. Entrepreneurs
have traditionally been successful by doing more
with less, and the efficient and creative use of
resources is a major catalyst for entrepreneurial
success (Alvarez and Barney 2007). Consequently,
research in social entrepreneurship may serve as a
particularly attractive context for future research
efforts whose objective is to understand how to
create unique resources bundles under conditions of
resource scarcity. Members of the Academy of
Management have long felt ‘a nagging uneasiness
about the gap between what we as an Academy
amount to and what we might amount to’
(Hambrick, 1994: 13). Such sentiments parallel the
Strategic Management Society’s vision for the Stra-
tegic Entrepreneurship Journal to change ‘societal
life in ways that have significant, sustainable, and
durable consequence’ (Schendel and Hitt, 2007: 2).
The emerging field of social entrepreneurship is
fertile ground to apply the type of systematic inves-
tigation where management scholars and researchers
excel, and the impact of such work could create a
significant impact both within and beyond the aca-
demic realm.
CONCLUSION
Social entrepreneurship is a budding area of schol-
arly inquiry; yet, most research efforts to date have
positioned it primarily in nonprofit and public policy
domains. As a nascent research stream, it suffers
from issues common to early strategic management
and entrepreneurship research, such as lack of con-
struct legitimacy and undefined theoretical content
and boundaries. For social entrepreneurship research
Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 3: 161–194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/sej

to progress in a timely manner commensurate with
other areas of study, advancements in theory build-
ing and theory testing are necessary. Doing so will
enable an improved understanding of the determi-
nants of social entrepreneurship, but failure to incor-
porate such scholarly advancements will place
research in social entrepreneurship in a questionable
state of legitimacy and academic merit.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Mike Hitt, Dave
Ketchen, Tyge Payne, and the two anonymous
reviewers for their thoughtful comments on pre-
vious drafts of this manuscript.
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APPENDIX
List of social entrepreneurship articles used in this
review.
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Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
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Copyright © 2009 Strategic Management Society
Research in Social Entrepreneurship 191
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