On the Frontiers: The Implications of Social Entrepreneurship for International Entrepreneurship

Abstract

We explore how social entrepreneurship (SE) research extends the field of international entrepreneurship (IE) to affect global sustainable well–being. Well–being is a multidimensional concept that includes financial, social, and environmental wealth creation. Much of IE research thus far has been based primarily on assumptions of economic opportunity recognition, evaluation, and exploitation. We use the SE perspectives of blended value and international governance to revise the definition, assumptions, and boundaries of IE at the firm and international policy levels. We propose a broader vision for the IE field based on an expanded set of assumptions beyond traditional economic thinking.

Internationalization and value orientation of entrepreneurial ventures—a Latin American perspective

“…Recently, some social entrepreneurial opportunities have been found to be of international nature, such as entrepreneurial opportunities tackling environmental issues, e.g., climate change and energy depletion or social issues, e.g., global poverty gap (Zahra et al 2008;Zahra et al 2014;Alvarez and Barney 2014). There is an emerging phenomenon of entrepreneurial activities achieving both internationalization and socially oriented value creation.…”

“…There is an emerging phenomenon of entrepreneurial activities achieving both internationalization and socially oriented value creation. Entrepreneurial activities with social missions and international missions and operations, focusing on blended value creation, social change, and environmental sustainability, are defined as international social entrepreneurship (ISE) (Zahra et al 2014;Munoz 2010). Social ventures with international missions and operations are called ISVs (Zahra et al 2008;Chen 2012).…”

“…Ventures are not exclusively driven by profit-making, but have different value orientations, from profit-oriented (prominently driven by creation of economic value) to socially oriented (prominently driven by creation of social value or environmental value) (Zahra et al 2014).…”

“…International ventures can be small or part of large enterprises, or can be young and rapidly internationalizing INVs or established companies expanding in pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities Oviatt and McDougall 2005). In addition, international ventures can also have different value orientations (Zahra et al 2014) or are from advanced or emerging economies (Kiss et al 2012). In this paper, we differentiated ventures by two dimensions: the dimension of internationalization (international or domestic) and the dimension of value orientation (profit-oriented or socially oriented).…”

Untitled

“…Regarding the social aspect, previous studies have indicated that an SE focuses on obtaining entrepreneurial rents, while simultaneously improving social and environmental conditions both locally and globally (Cohen and Winn, 2007;Dean and McMullen, 2007;Zahra et al, 2014). Corner and Ho (2010) studied the identification of opportunity in the social entrepreneurship literature and observed that SE practitioners tend to identify social need and generate prospective ideas for resolving it.…”