Christensen, Baumann, Ruggles, and Sadtler (2006) proposed that organizations addressing social problems may use catalytic innovation as a strategy to create social change. These innovations aim to create scalable, sustainable, and systemschanging solutions. This empirical study examines: (a) whether catalytic innovation applies to Mexican social entrepreneurship; (b) whether those who adopt Christensen et al.'s (2006) strategy generate more social impact; and (c) whether they demonstrate economic success. We performed a survey of 219 Mexican social entrepreneurs and found that catalytic innovation does occur within social entrepreneurship, and that those social entrepreneurs who use catalytic innovations not only maximize their social impact but also maximize their profits, and that they do so with diminishing returns to scale. Copyright
Poverty and unemployment are problems that affect many countries. Governments are not able to meet many social needs, creating a void into which business initiatives can enter. Social enterprises are a form of social entrepreneurship, and are initiatives that seek economic benefits as well as the alleviation of social needs. One successful strategy to meet social and economic benefits is through Christensen's "Catalytic Innovation". We performed 47 interviews in Mexican Social Enterprises to search for catalytic innovation, success traits and business strategies. We found that successful social enterprises meet most of Christensen catalytic innovation elements, and that they also have business strategies in place.
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