Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2010

Abstract

Facing issues of survivability, social-purpose entrepreneurs are reinventing to better balance market and mission goals. Addressing the deficit of empirical data about how they do it and, in particular, a gap in knowledge about the crucial start up phase of the social entrepreneurial process we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 31 North American founder/CEO's at various points in early stage social venture creation. The data revealed a four-stage early venture developmental continuum featuring progressive critical success factors on which we mapped successful, struggling and failed ventures in our sample. While effective execution of each factor helps secure incremental legitimacy with stakeholders a key determinant of early stage success- ineffective execution results in loss of legitimacy, venture regression and potential mortality. This study contributes to the growing, but still nascent and largely theoretical- literature on social purpose entrepreneurship.

Keywords

social entrepreneurship, chief executive officers -- United States, social venture creation, strategy, earned income, stakeholder development, survival

Rights

© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.

Department/Center

Design & Innovation

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