Commercial Entrepreneurship Research Articles

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2015 to 2016: Special Topic Report on Social Entrepreneurship

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2015 to 2016: Special Topic Report on Social Entrepreneurship

Human capital in social and commercial entrepreneurship

We advance research on human capital and entrepreneurial entry and posit that, in order to generate value, social entrepreneurship requires different configurations of human capital than commercial entrepreneurship. We develop a multilevel framework to analyse the commonalities and differences between social and commercial entrepreneurship, including the impact of general and specific human capital, of national context and its moderating effect on the human capital-entrepreneurship relationship. We find that specific entrepreneurial human capital is relatively more important in commercial entrepreneurship, and general human capital in social entrepreneurship, and that the effects of human capital depend on the rule of law.

Social enterprise: Gender gap and economic development

Companies created by women represent a substantial part of entrepreneurship. While men outnumber women in entrepreneurship rates, the gender gap decreases in the case of social enterprises. This may be explained by the fact that roles and stereotypes that influence women's behavior will lead to significantly identify with the values promulgated by social enterprises. This greater involvement in social activities leads women to become an essential player for promoting such needed initiatives given the impossibility for public institutions to address all social problems. Therefore in this paper, firstly, we study the gender gap in social and commercial entrepreneurship, distinguishing between enterprises with less than 42 months of activity and those consolidated in the market. Secondly, and aware of the variability of data between countries, a study is conducted using a sample of 48 countries grouped according to their level of development. The results confirm what is stated in the literature, the gender gap is reduced in the case of social entrepreneurship and it is also shown that female participation in social enterprises is influenced by the level of development of the country. These results lead us to highlight the importance of variables such as culture or social norms when explaining female behavior.

Kicking Off Social Entrepreneurship: How A Sustainability Orientation Influences Crowdfunding Success

AbstractResearch generally suggests that, relative to commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs stand at a disadvantage at acquiring resources through traditional financial institutions. Yet interest in social entrepreneurship appears to be at an all‐time high. The current paper advances the argument that an innovative institutional form – crowdfunding – has emerged to address the needs of social entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs with limited access to traditional sources of capital. To examine this, we study whether and how a sustainability orientation affects entrepreneurs’ ability to acquire financial resources through crowdfunding and hypothesize that a venture's sustainability orientation will enhance its fundraising capability. We also suggest that project legitimacy and creativity mediate the relationship between a sustainability orientation and funding success. Our analysis produces two key findings: 1) a sustainability orientation positively affects funding success of crowdfunding projects, and 2) this relationship is partially mediated by project creativity and third party endorsements.

Human Capital in Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship

We advance research on human capital and entrepreneurial entry and posit that, in order to generate value, social entrepreneurship requires different configurations of human capital than commercial entrepreneurship. We develop a multilevel framework to analyse the commonalities and differences between social and commercial entrepreneurship, including the impact of general and specific human capital, of national context and its moderating effect on the human capital-entrepreneurship relationship. We find that specific entrepreneurial human capital is relatively more important in commercial entrepreneurship, and general human capital in social entrepreneurship, and that the effects of human capital depend on the rule of law.

Social entrepreneurship: the foundation of tomorrow's commercial business models?

Social and commercial entrepreneurship are often said to be two contrasting disciplines that are, at best, only tenuously related. Even though there is a lack of consensus on how to define both social and commercial entrepreneurship, most definitions of social entrepreneurship commonly state that solving social problems demands a narrow, specialised focus, whilst commercial entrepreneurship is often seen as a more conventionally 'business'-like activity. In this article, we put forward our arguments using theoretical discussion backed up by practical case studies to show that many of today's commercial business models are based on ideas with a social intention. Our findings on the economic importance of innovative social business ideas highlight the importance of social entrepreneurship, and the importance of encouraging social aspects in teaching, practical entrepreneurship support and research. In fact, we even find that social and commercial entrepreneurship are highly interrelated phenomena, which should not be treated as separate disciplines.

Social entrepreneurship: the foundation of tomorrow's commercial business models?

Social and commercial entrepreneurship are often said to be two contrasting disciplines that are, at best, only tenuously related. Even though there is a lack of consensus on how to define both social and commercial entrepreneurship, most definitions of social entrepreneurship commonly state that solving social problems demands a narrow, specialised focus, whilst commercial entrepreneurship is often seen as a more conventionally 'business'-like activity. In this article, we put forward our arguments using theoretical discussion backed up by practical case studies to show that many of today's commercial business models are based on ideas with a social intention. Our findings on the economic importance of innovative social business ideas highlight the importance of social entrepreneurship, and the importance of encouraging social aspects in teaching, practical entrepreneurship support and research. In fact, we even find that social and commercial entrepreneurship are highly interrelated phenomena, which should not be treated as separate disciplines.

For Love or Money? Contrasting Social and Commercial Entrepreneurs' Motivation and Meaningfulness

This mixed method study examined the similarities and differences between social and commercial entrepreneurs in the areas of motivation and meaningfulness. While motivation and meaningfulness have...

НОВА ПАРАДИГМА ДЛЯ МОДЕЛІ НОВОЇ ЕКОНОМІКИ: РОЛЬ СОЦІАЛЬНОГО ПІДПРИЄМНИЦТВА

The necessity of using innovative social technologies, and explores the concept of social entrepreneurship, which is parsed as a form of social innovations. It analyzes the concept of «social entrepreneurship» as a relatively new specific type of enterprise, and its differences from commercial entrepreneurship. It proves, that today in terms of the new model of economic development the social entrepreneurship allows, first of all, to carry out efficient change of social relations and management systems, for the sake of the growth of sociopolitical accessibility of marginalized groups to resources for provision of more qualitative satisfaction of the needs and participation in political processes; and, secondly, to save communicative integrity of social system due to the increase of social capital and possibility of choice for a social individual. It gives a characteristic of both “European” and “American” models of social entrepreneurship, as well as its peculiarities and differences. The provides the examples, how the most successful social entrepreneurs from the West contributed with the distribution of innovations, whose usefulness was rated so highly, that they were implemented on a national scale with the support of the state and business. Also, it analyzes current level of development of social entrepreneurship in Ukraine, the existing problems of creating favorable organizational, legal, economic and competitive conditions, organization and operation of different forms of social entrepreneurship, interaction between the state and public organizations, and maintenance of the development of social entrepreneurship in regions.

The Impact of the Triple Bottom Line on Social Entrepreneurship

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss the impact of the triple bottom line on social entrepreneurship where the triple bottom line is defined as profit, planet and people and social entrepreneurship is defined as entrepreneurial activity embedded with a social purpose such as global warning, poverty, economic inequality, famine, pandemics, terrorism, etc. Specifically, the paper examines the triple bottom line where profit is represented by economic value, planet by sustainability, and people by ethical leadership. The paper also explores social entrepreneurship as a new area of business that takes the problem solving skills of commercial entrepreneurship and combines it with the social concerns of charities and non-profits. The paper concludes that in order for social entrepreneurship to be successful, a paradigm shift of new metrics (beyond the traditional single bottom line metric of profitability) is required.

The impact of culture on national prevalence rates of social and commercial entrepreneurship

This cross-cultural study empirically investigates the cultural determinants of macro-level social and commercial entrepreneurship from a new institutional theory perspective. This study investigates if cultural shifts in cultural values, operationalized through the World Values Survey (WVS), impact the prevalence rates of social and commercial entrepreneurship at the national level. Social and commercial entrepreneurship rates are drawn from the 2009 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and aggregated for 53 countries in this cross-sectional analysis using multivariate regression. Findings indicate that traditional societal values positively impact commercial entrepreneurship prevalence rates, but negatively impact social entrepreneurship rates. Furthermore, self-expression societal values positively impact social entrepreneurship prevalence rates.

Service Learning in Social Entrepreneurship Education: Why Students Want to Become Social Entrepreneurs and How to Address Their Motives

Service learning has been identified as a suitable approach to teach social entrepreneurship. However, in order to design service learning in an appropriate way, it is necessary to better understand why students want to become a social entrepreneur as opposed to a traditional entrepreneur. Thus, this study aims at identifying distinct student motives for preferring social entrepreneurship. According to our research, reasons typically mentioned by students who prefer a social entrepreneurship career over a commercial entrepreneurship career belonged to the following categories: impact, personal motives, and considering social and economic aspects. From this understanding, we derive recommendations for the design of service learning in social entrepreneurship programs. We hope that these recommendations will contribute to a student-oriented design of service learning that incorporates students’ own motives.

Are Farmers in Alternative Food Networks Social Entrepreneurs? Evidence from a Behavioral Approach

Social entrepreneurship, individual activities with a social objective, is used in this study as a conceptual tool for empirically examining farmers’ participation in alternative food networks (AFNs). This study verifies whether their participation is driven by the social entrepreneurship dimension to satisfy social and environmental needs. We develop a more inclusive view of how social entrepreneurship is present among farmers participating in AFNs by using a behavioural approach based on three main psychological constructs: attitude, objective, and behaviour. The empirical results show that two types of farmers participate in AFNs. One type is closer to commercial entrepreneurs; the main attitudes and objectives affecting their behaviour are oriented toward profit maximization and farm progress. The second type is closer to social entrepreneurial activity; the main objectives affecting their behaviour are oriented towards satisfying social and environmental needs. The study’s results offer implications and suggest recommendations concerning social entrepreneurial practices and the motivations of the farmers who participate in AFNs.

Corporate Engagement at the Base of the Pyramid: Commercial Microfinance and Entrepreneurship

Microenterprise loans are commonly considered an effective way of having social impact at the base of the pyramid (BOP). We examine evidence for this in the context of a microfinance company, investigating how economic outcomes associated with loans meant for supporting microenterprises compare with those for other kinds of loans. While loans targeting income generation do in general exhibit better outcomes, these outcomes are at least as good for loans specifically funding traditional means of rural livelihood as for microenterprise loans. Within microenterprise loans, the outcomes are even worse for starting than growing microenterprises, pointing towards lack of complementary resources and skills as a bottleneck. These findings suggest a need to temper the emphasis on funding microenterprises as a preferred way of supporting BOP livelihoods.

Settlement of Tax Disputes in the Russian Federation and Germany

This article is devoted to the settlement of tax disputes in the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany. The features of the conflict settlement mechanism are both shown in the stage of administrative and judicial review. In accordance with German law, the administrative stage of dispute resolution, carried out by the tax authority, always precedes the filing of a complaint to a court. Consequently, the taxpayer submits his first application in writing to the tax authority that issued the tax act, though in some cases to a higher tax authority. This obligatory procedure was borrowed by the Russian tax system. The trial stage of tax dispute settlement in Germany is carried out by specialized courts, forming a two-level system for legal proceedings. Thus, the tax dispute submitted to the Court is settled first by the financial lands courts and then by the higher Federal Financial Court. However, the Federal Financial Court takes into consideration only certain categories of actions listed in the Act (the Regulations) of finance courts (Finanzgerichtordnung). In Russia appeals of administrative review of tax conflicts, unlike in the German system, are handled by arbitration and general jurisdiction courts. The Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation is the supreme judicial body for settling economic disputes and other cases considered by arbitration courts in implementing federal procedural judicial supervision over their activities and provides explanations regarding judicial practices. Arbitration courts established at the level of the Federation to resolve disputes involving commercial entities, e.g. enterprises and entrepreneurs, resolve the bulk of tax disputes. These courts are composed of specially created panels of judges known as bars, i.e. groups of judges who specialize in reviewing taxation cases.

Buenas prácticas de sostenibilidad financiera: El caso del desarrollo acelerado de las organizaciones no lucrativas coreanas

El éxito de las Beyoungri Danche depende de las estrategias financieras que sus líderes utilizan para hacerlas sostenibles en el tiempo. La recopilación de buenas prácticas de las Beyoungri Danche coreanas en la literatura y una investigación exploratoria de contenidos web de tres organizaciones exitosas, permite aprender tácticas de otra cultura que ha demostrado un alto nivel organizacional y fortalecer el diálogo alrededor de un tema de interés común.

The Impact of Culture on National Prevalence Rates of Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship

This cross-cultural study empirically investigates the cultural determinants of macro-level social and commercial entrepreneurship from a new institutional theory perspective. This study investigates if cultural shifts in cultural values, operationalized through the World Values Survey (WVS), impact the prevalence rates of social and commercial entrepreneurship at the national level. Social and commercial entrepreneurship rates are drawn from the 2009 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and aggregated for 53 countries in this cross-sectional analysis using multivariate regression. Findings indicate that traditional societal values positively impact commercial entrepreneurship prevalence rates, but negatively impact social entrepreneurship rates. Furthermore, self-expression societal values positively impact social entrepreneurship prevalence rates.

"Human Capital, Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: The Role of Gender and Institutions"

We propose that human capital, in particular higher education, has different consequences for the engagement of individuals in social and commercial entrepreneurship. These consequences are gender-...

When do new economic elites engage in social change? Evidence from successful Indian entrepreneurs

We explore the issue of how new economic elites change civil society. We focus on an important subset of the new economic elite - commercial entrepreneurs that have experienced economic success thr...

Success as multi-dimensional–an investigation beyond the social-commercial e-ship distinction

This paper raises three research questions: what are the empirically held success criteria and how do they differ among social and commercial entrepreneurs? How are these different criteria associated to each other empirically? Are there typical bundles that allow distinguishing different types of entrepreneurs, thus refining or partially transcending the social versus commercial dichotomy? Qualitative and quantitative analyses of 88 interviews suggests that success is a bundle of (some) interlinked success criteria. I derived six types of entrepreneurs that go beyond the social – commercial entrepreneur distinction: the missionary, the profit-seeker, the lukewarm impassionate, the outward-looker, the sturdy machine, and the bonding self-made person.