Birgitta Schwartz

Societal Entrepreneurship : Positioning, Penetrating, Promoting

Entrepreneurship generally is about creative organizing but with social enterprising this is especially so. Most social ventures cross the boundaries between the private, the public and the non-pro ...

Holding on to the Anomaly of Social Entrepreneurship Dilemmas in Starting up and Running a Fair-Trade Enterprise

Abstract The different shapes taken on by social entrepreneurship in contemporary society show that social goals are integrated by commercial enterprises and commercial goals are incorporated by organisations with a social mission. Combining a social mission with commercial goals is often presented as a ‘win-win’ situation. In this article, we highlight the potential tensions and conflicts created by the conflicting demands and expectations when the institutional non-profit and for-profit logics meet in social entrepreneuring. From this viewpoint, social entrepreneurship is an anomaly, which seems difficult to resolve. Despite this, we often read descriptions of social entrepreneurs as heroes, which show how social entrepreneurship is glorified and part of the marketisation of society. This article sets out to present a more complex and problematic picture of practising social entrepreneurship where the obvious ‘win-win’ situations more often appear as ‘win-lose’ and sometimes even as ‘lose-lose’. From a three-year ethnographic study of an emerging fair-trade enterprise, the concept of disharmony shows that dilemmas are part of everyday life in social entrepreneuring. Instead of posing insoluble conflicts, dilemmas light the way for the individual social entrepreneur. They are managed through temporary rationalisation; finding a way to integrate conflicting demands into the life of a social entrepreneur. Disharmony includes moments of identity struggle, but is also a learning process in which the social entrepreneur tries to understand the difference between what she does and what she actually achieves.

Organizing societal entrepreneurship : A cross-sector challenge

Allying and expanding the diverse fields of entrepreneurship and sustainable development research is a modern day imperative. The Handbook of Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development Research cuts through the different approaches and perspectives of the two fields to point the way ahead for research on sustainable entrepreneurship, outlining the motivation, intentions and impact of ecopreneurs in a local, national and global context.This Handbook paints an illuminating picture of the historic and current understanding of the bond between entrepreneurship and sustainable development. The authors explore the basic contradictions between the two fields and outline the transformative role entrepreneurship can play in achieving sustainable development. 45 expert researchers and their research communities from 16 countries across Europe, Africa, Australia and North America provide original and informative contributions on a variety of issues, from women’s empowerment to climate change and organic farmers to ecotourism.With current and authorative contributions spanning the globe, this Handbook will inspire researchers, teachers and policy-makers to compose their own understanding and contribution on the fast expanding field of entrepreneurship and sustainable development.