Social entrepreneurship: Innovation and social change across theory and practice

Companies and nonprofits, regardless of the sector they belong to, their dimension or their geographical location, are increasingly asked to provide innovative solutions to manage complex social problems: from community development to social exclusion and poverty reduction (Margolis and Walsh, 2003). Social entrepreneurship (SE), an unusual contact point among entrepreneurship, innovation and social change, has been increasingly catalyzing the interest of academics, companies, and the business debate for about a decade. Attention is expanding exponentially with a multiplicity of publications, MBA core and elective courses and academic research centers explicitly focused on deep analysis of the SE phenomenon. There are also numerous innovative and supportive actors such as specialized consulting groups, social venture capitalists, social angels and so on.