Are They Really a New Species? Exploring the Emergence of Social Entrepreneurs Through Giddens’s Structuration Theory

Abstract

Using Giddens’s structuration theory and empirical data from a study with social enterprise stakeholders, the article explores how social entrepreneurs and the structure co-create one another. We show that the development of the contemporary significance of social entrepreneurialism lies in a combination of complex context-specific structural forces and the activities of agents who initiate, demand, and impose change. Social entrepreneurs intentionally tackle social challenges, but their actions bring unintentional results, such as the transfer of state responsibilities onto communities. Direct outputs of their activities introduce indirect outcomes, bringing wider changes in culture and policy. The evolving nature of entrepreneurship and a number of factors that interplay in time and space, and enable and constrain social entrepreneurs, confirm the applicability of Giddens’s theory in the field of social entrepreneurship. The originality of this article derives from revealing mechanisms that enable social entrepreneurs to emerge and reasons for structural change. We also build a “co-creation model of structure and agency” that can be used to “engineer” the process of social entrepreneurship.

Crisis, Continuity, and Missed Opportunity: Tracing a Transnational Solidarity Economy across Europe in Turbulent Times

“…This finding indicates that the financial climate also affects the sustainability of private businesses and their (in)ability to support CSOs. Moreover, we should recognise that some CSOs can experience tension between private sources of revenue and their social missions (Teasdale 2012;Steiner et al 2021).…”

“…The importance of transnational solidarity-defined as collaborations of citizens, realised in civil society through the work of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) (Lahusen 2020), and operationalised through socially innovative organisations including a range of solidarity groups or social enterprises (Defourny and Nyssens 2010;Defourny and Nyssens 2013;Laville 2018)-is exemplified by the need to collectively address the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as other economic, social and environmental challenges of a global nature (Montgomery and Mazzei 2021). Indeed, the role of CSOs in tackling many wicked global problems including poverty, hunger, water shortages, social and economic inequality, and climate change has been acknowledged in previous studies (Steiner et al 2021). At the same time, CSOs have also been recognised for meeting the basic needs of a wide range of vulnerable groups in society at local and national levels (Henderson et al 2020;Kelly et al 2021).…”

“…At the same time, CSOs have also been recognised for meeting the basic needs of a wide range of vulnerable groups in society at local and national levels (Henderson et al 2020;Kelly et al 2021). The fact that, in some cases, CSOs have been performing a welfare function is not new (Peck and Tickell 2002;Markantoni et al 2018) and issues surrounding the role of CSOs in welfare provision are well-established in the literature (Swyngedouw 2005;Brandsen and Pestoff 2006;Steiner et al 2021;Baglioni and Giugni 2014;Jones and Royles 2020).…”

Social entrepreneurship and the creation of social value: the case in the Mexico northeast

“…The importance of situating the research in the Huasteca Tamaulipeca is related to the call made by Steiner et al (2022), who mention the importance of starting to investigate, integrate, and understand the contexts in which social enterprises are located, in order to understand how entrepreneurial behaviors are shaped, which will enable the generation of more effective ideas and strategies to foster entrepreneurial development in the area.…”

The Dynamics of Fine-Grained Firm–Stakeholder Contentions and Synergies in the Process of Sustainable Development: The Case of Cassava-Based Beer Production in Africa

“…The literature on firm-stakeholder interactions that emphasizes synergy creation includes business-driven social innovation [9,13,16], base of the pyramid [10][11][12]14,15], social enterprise [20][21][22], and creating shared value, or CSV [17][18][19]. These studies differ considerably from each other in terms of their relative weights on a firm's business interests and stakeholders' societal concerns.…”