Purpose

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an emerging social phenomenon gaining tangible traction for its ability to tackle complex social and environmental problems against a backdrop of global sustainability challenges. This paper aims to unpack SE intentions, mindset and motivations to elucidate “why” and “how” social entrepreneurs (SE) initiate, perpetuate and sustain pro-social entrepreneurship activity. It specifically asks why SE do what they do, how they develop and sustain pro-social entrepreneurship action and how these normative drivers affect the social change process.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative research adopts an exploratory multiple case design approach in examining the tacit experience of eight SE tackling complex water, sanitation and environmental challenges in Indonesia, and combines this with scholarly insights from multiple bodies of knowledge. Case studies include six SE recognised by the Ashoka Foundation and two lesser-known “social enterprises” to enable finding patterns across the cases and compare key differences between pro-social and conventional entrepreneurship. Triangulating semi-structured interviews with secondary data analysis and semi-ethnographic fieldwork observations, this paper provides a rich theoretical and empirical basis to understand the emerging transformative potential of SE in tackling a range of sustainability issues.

Findings

Interviews with eight SE highlighted their intentions to advance inter and intra-generational equity, social justice and sustainability, bringing socially embedded empathetic values and a growth mindset to overcome challenges associated with disrupting existing social order. Direct engagement with the SE revealed 10 critical enabling factors to foster future SE potential, namely, individual background and experience, unmet social needs, empathy, sense of belonging, willingness/passion to alleviate other’s suffering, growth mindset, internal/external catalysts, intrinsic and extrinsic needs, beliefs and goals and declaration of a social mission to ensure consistency in behaviour and action. This demonstrates that while SE are motivated by a variety of self and other-oriented mechanisms, it is ultimately the process of developing empathy, a growth mindset and declaring a social mission that drives and sustains pro-social entrepreneurship action.

Practical implications

The output of this research is a new intentions model, which outlines the 5 phases of enterprise development and 10 critical enabling factors to foster future SE potential. These insights are critical to leveraging the emerging transformative potential of SE in tackling the world’s most urgent sustainability issues.

Social implications

The paper presents a deep analysis of data on individual background, experience and characteristics in developing a new SE intentions model.

Originality/value

The distinct focus on inputs over processes and outcomes answers to a highly elusive topic while offering an alternative approach to understand how SE create remarkably different strategies, processes and outcomes to conventional developmental approaches.

中文翻译：

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了解社会企业家：促进公平、社会正义和可持续性的新意图模型

目的

社会企业家精神 (SE) 是一种新兴的社会现象，因其在全球可持续性挑战的背景下解决复杂的社会和环境问题的能力而获得了切实的关注。本文旨在揭示社会企业家的意图、心态和动机，以阐明社会企业家 (SE) 发起、延续和维持亲社会企业家活动的“原因”和“方式”。它特别询问了社会企业为什么要做他们所做的事情，他们如何发展和维持亲社会的创业行动，以及这些规范性驱动因素如何影响社会变革过程。

设计/方法/方法

这项定性研究采用探索性的多案例设计方法来检验印度尼西亚八个 SE 应对复杂的水、卫生和环境挑战的默契经验，并将其与来自多个知识体系的学术见解相结合。案例研究包括 Ashoka Foundation 认可的六个 SE 和两个鲜为人知的“社会企业”，以便在案例中找到模式并比较亲社会和传统创业之间的关键差异。本文将半结构化访谈与二次数据分析和半民族志实地考察进行三角剖分，为了解 SE 在解决一系列可持续性问题方面出现的变革潜力提供了丰富的理论和经验基础。

发现

对八位社会企业的采访强调了他们促进代际和代内公平、社会正义和可持续性的意图，带来社会嵌入的同理心价值观和成长心态，以克服与破坏现有社会秩序相关的挑战。与 SE 的直接接触揭示了培养未来 SE 潜力的 10 个关键促成因素，即个人背景和经验、未满足的社会需求、同理心、归属感、减轻他人痛苦的意愿/热情、成长心态、内部/外部催化剂、内在和外在的需要、信念和目标以及社会使命宣言，以确保行为和行动的一致性。这表明，虽然 SE 受到各种自我和他人导向机制的激励，但它最终是发展同理心的过程，

实际影响

这项研究的成果是一个新的意图模型，它概述了企业发展的 5 个阶段和 10 个关键促成因素，以培养未来的 SE 潜力。这些见解对于利用 SE 新兴的变革潜力来解决世界上最紧迫的可持续发展问题至关重要。

社会影响

本文对开发新的 SE 意图模型的个人背景、经验和特征的数据进行了深入分析。

原创性/价值

对过程和结果的投入的独特关注回答了一个非常难以捉摸的主题，同时提供了一种替代方法来了解 SE 如何创建与传统​​发展方法截然不同的策略、过程和结果。