Entrepreneurship is often seen as a business venture that involves forming businesses solely to earn money or create jobs. It’s important to keep in mind that entrepreneurship goes beyond than just making money. It’s all about finding opportunities in undiscovered areas, whether it be by creating the next product or service, or improving an existing community or developing an innovative process.
It’s therefore no surprise that entrepreneurship is closely linked to the social sciences. There is a lot of overlap between these two fields, especially in terms of how entrepreneurs need to be aware of their impact on people and communities. To run their business successfully, they must understand societal trends as well as human psychology.
The social entrepreneurship field (SE) has given rise to many innovative and new ideas about the concept of entrepreneurship. As a result, there are many different ‘schools of thought’ in the literature that focus on this new type of entrepreneurial activity. The analysis of citations shows that the most popular method is based on institutional theory, with a clear domination of papers written by scholars from Western societies. These papers usually address external factors, such government policies or the existence of an eco-system which can affect the establishment and operation of SE ventures. They also explore the importance that social and emotional aspects play in the decision to engage such activities.