Beyond the Moral Portrayal of Social Entrepreneurs: An Empirical Approach to Who They Are and What Drives Them

This paper questions the taken-for-granted moral portrayal depicted in the extant literature and popular media of the devoted social entrepreneurial hero with a priori good ethical and moral credentials. We confront this somewhat ‘idealistic’ and biased portrayal with insights from unique large-scal...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:  
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs: Bacq, Sophie (Auteur) ; Hartog, Chantal (Auteur) ; Hoogendoorn, Brigitte (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
En cours de chargement...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publié: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2016
Dans: Journal of business ethics
Année: 2016, Volume: 133, Numéro: 4, Pages: 703-718
Sujets non-standardisés:B Ethics
B Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)
B Social Entrepreneurship
B Moral portrait
B Individual characteristics
B Social entrepreneurs
Accès en ligne: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Résumé:This paper questions the taken-for-granted moral portrayal depicted in the extant literature and popular media of the devoted social entrepreneurial hero with a priori good ethical and moral credentials. We confront this somewhat ‘idealistic’ and biased portrayal with insights from unique large-scale data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2009 survey on social entrepreneurship covering Belgium and The Netherlands. Binary and multinomial logistic regressions indicate that the intention and dominance of perceived social value creation over economic value creation is indeed what makes social entrepreneurs unique. In contrast to the extant literature, however, our empirical investigation points at a reluctant attitude of social entrepreneurs toward entrepreneurship in terms of confidence in their skills to start and manage a business, their perception of entrepreneurship as a desirable career choice and their involvement in their activities. While the extant literature points at a strong entrepreneurial orientation as a source of ethical issues (e.g., mission drift, profit orientation), the main contribution of this study lies in the reverse observation: ethical issues are also likely to emanate from a frail entrepreneurial profile. We formulate empirically grounded propositions that may serve as a basis for theory-building and testing purposes.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2446-7