Social entrepreneurship is gaining speed. Armed with the tools of traditional entrepreneurs, socially-minded business people around the globe are looking for new ways to create social value. Prof. Johanna Mair looks at some successful projects, including a bank in Bangladesh, a pharmaceutical company in the U.S. and a multi-business firm in Egypt. She offers a modern definition of social entrepreneurship and explains how we can use it in the future to create a better world.

Executive Summary

Social entrepreneurship is attracting much attention at both academic institutions and in the business world. While providing all the challenges and rewards of traditional entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship aims to change society – if not the world. Socially-minded entrepreneurs challenge the status quo and our thinking about what is possible. They come up with new solutions based on local needs. Powerful clusters of social entrepreneurs already exist in Latin America and Southeast Asia. And the future is likely to bring more and more corporations into the scene, as they team up with social entrepreneurs – through what we call "social intrapreneurship" – to implement corporate social responsibility programs.

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