A research agenda for social entrepreneurship

Purpose To study the nature of social entrepreneurship from the viewpoint of activities associated with the perception of opportunities to create social value and the creation of social purpose organizations to pursue them. Design/methodology/approach The ways in which social enterprises adopt financially sustainable strategies to pursue social aims and address a wide a range of social problems, such as unemployment and inequalities in access to health and social care services, are discussed. Applies the results of existing research to summarize the size of the social enterprise sector in the UK, Europe and US. Proposes eight research themes for social enterprises research and endorses the need for researchers to build on current knowledge and to work together to generate a theory and produce valid, reliable and comparable data capable of being shared by researchers, policy makers and those with an interest in social entrepreneurship. Findings The eight research themes identified by the study comprise: defining the scope of social entrepreneurship; the environmental context; opportunity recognition and innovation; modes of organization; resource acquisition; opportunity exploitation; performance measurement; and training education and learning about social entrepreneurship. Originality/value Facilitates research into social entrepreneurship in the UK by overcoming the handicaps caused by the lack of standard and universally acceptable definitions of social enterprise, social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship as well as the absence of a national register of social enterprises.