// Social entrepreneurs

According to the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship “[s]ocial entrepreneurship is about innovative, market-oriented approaches underpinned by a passion for social equity and environmental sustainability. Ultimately, social entrepreneurship is aimed at transformational systems change that tackles the root causes of poverty, marginalization, environmental deterioration and accompanying loss of human dignity.

It displays three characteristics, namely

– sociality, i.e. it is directed towards public interest,

– innovation and

– market orientation.

Famous social entrepreneurs are, for example, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing practice, Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and Wendy Kopp, who founded Teach for America.

Social entrepreneurship as a term and practice became prominent in the second half of the last century, particularly promoted by Bill Drayton who founded Ashoka, although social entrepreneurship evidently existed before. It has reached both academic research and teaching in various institutions and, according to Nicholls amongst others (2006, p. 2), “emerged as a global phenomenon” in recent years.

Edit – links to further parts on socio-academic entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs – Agents of Change: Summary I/VII
Introduction II/VII
Academic Entrepreneurs III/VII
Social Entrepreneurs IV/VII
Socio-Academic Entrepreneurs V/VII
Conclusion VI/VII
Bibliography VII/VII