The Value of Social Entrepreneurship Term Paper

The Value of Social Entrepreneurship - Term Paper Example Social entrepreneurship is specifically designed to target the social problems and identify innovative and effective ways of dealing with them. Government and the society encourage businesses directed at addressing the needs of the society. This paper provides a review of literature to define the term â€Å"social entrepreneurship†, explores the ways in which it creates value for the society and finally discusses the impact of social entrepreneurship on business. Background There has been a lot of research on social entrepreneurship and its impacts on microeconomics and business administration lately particularly after the founder of the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2006. Nevertheless, the research to date has generally been confined to defining social entrepreneurship as a phenomenon (Pariyar and Ward, 2005, p. 1) or to the specific case studies. The existing literature does not provide a comprehensive insight into the relationship betwee n economic development policies and social entrepreneurship. This imparts need for research on the significance of social entrepreneurship for the economic prosperity and its implications for the policy makers. Literature Review Definition of Social Entrepreneurship Social entrepreneurship has been largely identified as an emerging field. Although it has been attempted to be defined various times, yet a common definition has not been agreed upon (Austin et al., 2006, p. 1). The term social entrepreneurship â€Å"combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley† (Dees, 2001, p. 1). Attempts of defining social entrepreneurship date back to Jean-Baptiste Say, the French economist who attempted to define the term with respect to its use in the early nineteenth century. According to Jean-Baptiste Say, a social entrepreneur is somebody wh o tends to create value by transferring the economic resources from an area of low productivity to a place where the yield is greater and the productivity is higher (Martin and Osberg, 2007, p. 2). Joseph Schumpeter’s definition of the social entrepreneur is one of the most frequently used definitions of the term. Joseph Schumpeter defined an entrepreneur as a creative force that drives economic prosperity, thus serving as a change agent. Conventionally, an entrepreneur is understood as someone who establishes a new business, though this interpretation of the term reflects a loose application contrary to the richness of its history and the significance of its meaning. Although numerous definitions have been traditionally proposed for entrepreneur, the term social entrepreneur is relatively newer and thus, has not been defined as much. Definitions proposed to date differ from one author to another depending upon the context in which social entrepreneurship has been defined. Co nditions vary from one country to another, and accordingly, the definitions of social entrepreneur. One of the most frequently used definitions of social entrepreneurship is the one proposed by Gregory Dees et al. who refer to social entrepreneurship as a change agent which, [a]dopts a mission to create and sustain social values, [r]ecognizes and relentlessly pursues new opportunities to serve that mission, [e]ngages in a