RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

How to create a social enterprise: a case study 219
In this study we take a process perspective on social venture and empirically study a process
that was carried out in order to establish a social enterprise and this way, solve a social
problem concerning employment of disadvantaged persons.
Literature review
Social entrepreneurship and social enterprises
The central driver for social entrepreneurship is the social problem being addressed in an
innovative and entrepreneurial way (Chell et al., 2010). Current academic discussion however
has not been able to create single definition for social entrepreneurship (Kraus et al.,
2014; Seelos, 2014).
Social enterprise can be seen as outcome of social entrepreneurship (Maír & Marti 2006).
They are seen as something new and distinct from classical for-profit business and traditional
non-profit activity, combining elements of the social purpose, the market orientation, and financial
performance standards of business (Young 2008; Galera & Borgaza, 2009). Social enterprises
combine business logic and social goals and usually tackle the wicked problems of our
society such as environmental problems, injustice, poverty and social exclusion, that traditional
private, public, voluntary or community mechanisms have not been able to solve (Shaw &
Carter 2007). As such, social enterprise formation can be seen as innovation. (Kirkman, 2012).
Korsgaard (2011) suggested that social entrepreneurship is a process of mobilisation and
transformation. Mobilisation means involvement of new actors and that consequently transforms
the venture. Phillips, Lee, Ghobadian, O’Regan and James (2015) suggested that social
innovation systems are sub-sets of individual and independent actors, but by means of collective
learning solve and address social issues.
Although social entrepreneurship exists in traditional, profit maximizing organisations,
social entrepreneurship and social enterprises are considered as possible solution to non-profit
organisations financial and operating problems and therefore highly relevant approach for nonprofit
sector. Hull and Lio, (2006) studied differences between non-profits and for-profit organisations
regard to innovation and found out that non-profits particularly focus on process
innovation instead of product innovations because process innovations may yield immediate
results beneficial to the organization’s cause, making it less risky and less expensive.
Living Labs as innovation policy tool
Policy-wise more and more focus has been targeted to the public or crowd as a group of
actors that influence every national innovation system and as a key part of promoting knowledge-based
economy. The need for Quadruple Helix cooperation between university, industry,
government and public instead of the traditional Triple Helix cooperation
(university-industry-government) has been brought out in several publications (see, e.g.
Markkula, 2014; MacGregor, Marques-Gou & Simon-Villar, 2010; Lindberg, Lindgren &
Packendorff, 2014) and is also strongly promoted by EU through the Smart Specialisation
concept (Foray, Gobbard, Beldarrain, Landabaso, McCann, Morgan, Nauwelaers, & Ortega-
Argilés, 2012).