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The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of team member diversity and internal social capital on project performance within the context of business plan competitions (BPCs).

The paper uses survey data on 95 nascent entrepreneurial teams enrolled in an open‐to‐the‐public BPCs. It assumes that higher levels of functional diversity as well as higher levels of internal social capital enhance the performance of nascent entrepreneurial teams in the crafting of their business plans (BPs).

Under this particular context, where the needs for information processing and decision‐making requirements are so high, teams having higher levels of functional diversity attained better performance. Inversely, teams with higher levels of internal social capital did not show a significant advantage in the development of the BP.

Limitations are associated with the exclusion of external social capital measures and not considering demographic faultlines, which might have some impact on the results. Besides, this paper has the limitation of basing its analysis upon teams within a BP contest. Theoretical implications stress that under contexts maximizing the difference between potential upside gains and downside losses, team diversity is expected to play a larger role for BP effectiveness and success than team members' internal social capital.

Recognizing team prevalence and the impact of social dynamics amongst team members within entrepreneurial settings.

The paper contributes with the impact of social dynamic processes on nascent entrepreneurial teams.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue, which explores the concept and significance of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship internationally.

This introductory article examines the literature that exists to date and presents an outline of some of the fundamental issues and the challenging tensions within the conceptualisation of social enterprise. The article concludes with a discussion of critical future research needs.

The findings suggest that a critical perspective is required in order to add originality and value to this developing area of research.

The papers presented raise some interesting issues about current conceptualisations of social enterprise and entrepreneurship, challenging tensions from critical, theoretical and empirical perspectives. The Special Issue seeks to expand the debate in social enterprise and bring to the fore some critical perspective in order to highlight alternative views which are often in conflict with the wave of euphoria and optimism that is driving current theoretical development in the field of social enterprise and entrepreneurship.

There has been great interest in social enterprise as an innovative response to challenging social problems, where mission and market are intertwined in a hybrid organization. The purpose of this paper is to provide students with a rich learning experience about social enterprises and how a social entrepreneur balances the double bottom line while trying to create social value.

The teaching case study was developed using personal interviews with the founder, board of directors and employees of the organization, observations and materials from the organization.

The findings from the field show that it is one thing to design a social enterprise that fulfils a social mission, quite another to make it sustainable. At the end of the 2005, the founder of Appalachian By Design (ABD), Diane Browning was faced with the difficult task of improving the financial condition to save the organization. The epilogue and detailed teaching notes provides insights into the impact of the organization on creating job opportunities for rural women in a shifting global economy.

This longitudinal descriptive case study provides social enterprises with the lessons learned and raises questions that all social entrepreneurs face when developing a social enterprise. The case provides a detailed analysis of the organization development and sustainability which will assist social entrepreneurs in addressing these issues early in the organizations development.

The value of the case of Appalachian By Design to the field is providing a robust analysis of the issues facing social enterprises and building a business model that sustains social value.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the diverse world of social enterprise.

This paper profiles 11 different social enterprises from around the world. These range from a profit‐achieving business in a very competitive industry, but one with strong social principles, through a profitable workers' co‐operative to ones needing to find financial sustainability if they are to continue their social aspirations. The paper discusses a number of key issues in defining an organisation as a social enterprise and highlights the central issue of measuring success and impact.

In some of the enterprises the important contribution of a pivotal social entrepreneur is apparent. The need to create and add value for customers and clients is always apparent, as is the need to find effective routes to market. It can be concluded that whilst certain beliefs and principles are routinely evident, social enterprises most certainly cannot be described as “one‐size‐fits‐all”.

The paper presents a collection of social enterprise stories.

Social marketing has evolved differently in the developing and developed worlds, at times leading to different emphases on what social marketing thought and practice entail. This paper aims to document what those differences have been and provide an integrative framework to guide social marketers in working with significant social and health issues.

An integration of views about social marketing is proposed that is focused on the core roles of audience benefits; analysis of behavioral determinants, context and consequences; the use of positioning, brand and personality in marketing strategy development; and use of the four elements of the marketing mix to tailor offerings, realign prices, increase access and opportunities; and communicate these in an evolving media environment.

Ideas about branding and positioning, core strategic social marketing concerns, have been better understood and practiced in developing country settings. Social marketing in developing countries has focused much more on products and services, with a concomitant interest in pricing and distribution systems. In developed countries, social marketing has too often taken the 1P route of using persuasive communications for behavior change. The integrative framework calls for an expansion of social marketing to product and service development and delivery, using incentives and other behavioral economic concepts as part of the price element, and extending place as both an access and opportunity idea for behaviors, products and services.

The framework pulls together social marketing ideas and practices from the diversity of settings in which they have been developed and allows practitioners and academics to use a common set of concepts to think about and design social marketing programs. The model also gives social marketers more latitude in how to use price and place in the design of programs. Finally, it also provides a platform for how we approach social change and public health in the years ahead through market‐based reform.

Five challenges to social marketing are identified – achieving equity, influence of social networks on behaviors, critical marketing, sustainability, scalability and the need for comprehensive programs – that may serve to focus and coalesce social marketing research and practice around the world.

The purpose of this paper is to extend research into social and ecological entrepreneurship. It aims to examine how ecopreneurs can create an economically viable business whilst retaining their core environmental and social values.

An exploratory approach within the phenomenological research paradigm. Single case study of Green‐Works triangulating data collection – semi structured interviews, micro‐ethnography and document analysis. Inductive approach.

A strong link is identified between entrepreneurialism and environmentalism. The entrepreneurial flair of the CEO enables the pursuit of environmental, social and economic goals. The success of the Green‐Works business model stems from the business's symbiotic relationships: firstly with large corporate bodies, which are keen to quantify their CSR efforts; secondly, with the community and social partners, who provide employment and training for disadvantaged people and a route to relatively risk free growth; and thirdly, with government and social institutions, which provide special concessions and support. The strong economic foundations of the model provide sustainability for the environmental and social objectives of the organisation.

Research restricted to one UK case study – a model that has evolved in part through policies and business trends specific to the UK. Further research should compare this business model with other social enterprises within the UK and other countries.

Provides a practical framework for social and green entrepreneurship. Of interest to ecopreneurs and social enterprises seeking economic sustainability; to governments, wishing to promote CSR, environmentalism and social enterprise; and to corporate organisations wishing to demonstrate a quantitative contribution to the environment and society.

Demonstration of natural fit between environmentalism and entrepreneurialism. Presentation of business model offering economic sustainability for environmental and social enterprises.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which urban social enterprises (SEs) have diversified their funding sources and shifted towards loans and development finance in recent years. The paper seeks to consider the underlying reasons for a limited demand for loans by comparing two theoretical perspectives on SE development. The concept of “social bricolage” implies SEs do not seek conventional business loans or equity finance, because they survive in resource poor environments by improvising and re‐using redundant capital. A second evolutionary approach implies that SE financing will be dominated by a reliance on habits and practices learnt from the contexts in which social entrepreneurs have operated.

The paper is based on analysis of interviews with 40 SEs in four English cities.

The paper finds a limited degree of change and scant evidence of local decentralisation in social enterprises' financial contexts. It argues that both conceptual approaches offer important insights into the causes of the low level of demand for development finance by emphasising the importance of practical and improvised financial management. This is an adaptive response to uncertainty but is also a manifestation of SEs' inherited capabilities in public and charitable finance.

The research is based on a relatively small sample of social enterprises in central and deprived urban areas. The financial practices of social enterprises in other types of environment also require examination.

It is unrealistic to expect the majority of SEs to secure conventional loan finance, instead they require “softer” finance and intensive support from intermediaries.

The paper makes a novel empirical contribution by revealing social enterprises' views and recent experiences with funding. Its approach allows an intensive examination of key financial issues. It makes an original theoretical contribution by seeking to apply, develop, and evaluate two theoretical perspectives on the form and practices of social enterprises.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a perspective to further the understanding of gender entrepreneurship. This paper considers the situatedness of the gendered entrepreneur within diverse international contexts marked by different constitutions of gender identities and networks of power, both within the context of contributions within this special issue but also more broadly within the field of gender and entrepreneurship research.

The authors adopt a feminist perspective and analyse the different framings of identity within gender and entrepreneurship literature and their contributions to our understandings of the concepts of both power and gendered identities.

The paper finds that power and identity are configured in different contexts in ways that open arenas for future analysis.

The paper highlights the importance of considering masculinities within gender and entrepreneurship research offering support for further analyses of entrepreneurial masculinities by examining two studies that expose entrepreneurial masculinities as shifting subjectivities influenced by men's social power, but also by interactions between men and women and broader cultural contexts and transitions. In so doing, it contributes to the research agenda in relation to gender and entrepreneurship in different contexts.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a theoretical reflection on existing and emerging literature on social entrepreneurship as it applies to the developing country experience, and specifically to the informal economy in Senegal, West Africa.

The paper adopts an exploratory, multi‐disciplinary approach grounded in economic and social theory, including open‐ended interviews and focus groups. The data are complemented by field observations and analysis.

Socio‐religious networks in West Africa like Mouridism, with its strong emphasis on work and giving of one's personal financial gains back to the Muslim brotherhood, has actually created a non‐capitalist spirit of commerce, and to some degree entrepreneurialism, among Senegalese Mourids who are majority Wolof.

As an initial exploration into this topic, the paper lacks sufficient empirical data and therefore the research results may lack generalizability.

The paper helps draw comparisons between what we know and what we do not know about social entrepreneurship in the informal economy, moving beyond the conventional neo‐liberal notions of competitive markets to explore entrepreneurial activities at the “Bottom of the pyramid” that establish economic exchange value which is socially embedded.

The paper seeks to address a perceived gap in the theoretical and empirical literature on the emerging phenomenon of social entrepreneurship. By analytically framing the debate on the role of markets in the social sector through a developing country lens, we are looking at social entrepreneurship as the intersection of embedded social and economic realities of the majority of workers who operate in the informal economy in Senegal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the business and research context influences how female entrepreneurs construct their identities.

Focussing specifically on the care work sector, the analysis of interview transcripts explores how participants struggle to establish a positive identity through reconciling the contradictory subject positions produced at the intersection of entrepreneurialism and caring.

The accounts reveal a silencing of the participants entrepreneurial identity and an embracing of their female identity, reflected in the mobilisation of a number of highly gendered “selves”. This is explained in terms of the participants' desire for legitimacy and integrity, principally in the eyes of their employees, something which is itself prompted by the precariousness of their position as female business owners in this sector.

The identity work is theorised at a structural level, reinforcing the need for future accounts of identity work to consider how this is always embedded in broader material conditions.

Presents an alternative way of enacting entrepreneurship and thus broadens normative notions of what it is to be an entrepreneur.

The paper complements existing post‐structuralist accounts of entrepreneurship and also illustrates the role of both broader structural and local contextual factors which both constrain and enable the identity work enacted.