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Young entrepreneurs' involvement in social entrepreneurship is gaining momentum, and the impact of their active participation in social enterprises is tremendous. As younger generation creates and leads social enterprises, self-identity that entails their leadership can bring benefits to various stakeholders. In particular, the engagement of younger generation in social entrepreneurship lead to positive identity development that brings impact not only to the founders but also to the employees, volunteers and recipients of the product and services offered by the social enterprise. In this context, the chapter explains the importance of social entrepreneurship in society-building, looking into how it creates values to its participants in regard to personal growth and development. The objective of this chapter is to elucidate the role of social enterprises in developing the personal identity of the younger generation. The chapter maps the characteristics of social entrepreneurs to the characteristics of young people with focus on the development of personal, social and role identities. The chapter also explains the significance of young social entrepreneurs' participation in social activities for the identity formation and how it directly and indirectly contributes to a balanced societal development.

Despite recent advances in research on antecedents of social entrepreneurial intentions, founder social identity has rarely been part of the research effort. This paper aims to investigate how different types of founder social identity affect social entrepreneurial intentions (SE intentions).

This study investigates how different types of founder social identity, such as Darwinians, Communitarians and Missionaries, affect SE intentions. Specifically, this study predicts that entrepreneurs with Darwinian identity would be less likely to form SE intentions, while those with Missionary and Communitarian identities would be more prone to form SE intentions. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 725 individuals recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Most of the hypotheses, except for Communitarian identity, are supported by the data analysis. The results contribute to the literature on founder social identity and SE intentions and demonstrate that founder social identity is one of the important antecedents of social entrepreneurial intentions.

Two of the hypotheses were supported by the results. Specifically, this study found a positive relation between Missionary founder social identity (its locus of self-definition is “Impersonal-We”) and social entrepreneurial intentions. This research also confirms that Darwinian founder social identity (its locus of self-definition is “I”) has a negative impact on social entrepreneurial intentions.

First, a person’s social identity has been largely overlooked in social entrepreneurship intention literature (Bacq and Alt, 2018; Hockerts, 2017; Zaremohzzabieh et al, 2019). The findings provide the empirical evidence that individual-level antecedents, especially one’s membership in a social group (i.e. social identity), exert a significant impact on the formation of SE intentions. Second, among the two types of founder social identity predicted to have a positive influence on SE intentions, only Missionary identity was found to have such a positive impact. The typical Communitarian locus of self-definition of “Personal We,” is less influential than the self-definition of the typical Missionary locus of “Impersonal We.” This might imply that not all types of feelings of belonging to a community have a positive impact on the formation and development of social entrepreneurial intentions. Finally, this study found that Darwinians are less likely to pursue social entrepreneurship although the definition of Darwinians is close to the definition of traditional entrepreneurs (e.g. profit/opportunity seekers). This may signify that the traditional concept of entrepreneurship may not be enough to explain different types of entrepreneurial motivations (e.g. social vs commercial entrepreneurship).

The authors propose a theoretical basis for understanding the role of ecosystem intermediaries in the configuration of social entrepreneurship identities in social purpose organisations (SPOs) and their business model innovations (BMIs).

Adopting a retrospective multiple-case study, the authors offer insights into the paths/elements that determine the building of 44 social entrepreneurship identities in the context of an emerging economy (Mexico).

The study sheds light on the role of intermediaries in the configuration of the entrepreneurial identities of Mexican SPOs and BMIs, as well as several externalities generated during the process of capturing the social and economic value, especially when social innovations are focussed on solving societal, economic and ecological social problems.

The first limitation is related to the analysis of intermediaries within the social entrepreneurship ecosystem, which needs more conceptual and empirical evidence. The second limitation is that the analysis focussed only on intervened SPOs, as the authors did not control for non-intervened SPOs. Thus, this allows for future in-depth analysis of intermediary efficiency in a focus group (intervened SPOs) and a control group (non-intervened SPOs).

The study also provides insights for Mexican SPOs on how a social entrepreneurship identity helps to capture the value creation of social innovations within an innovation ecosystem. Indeed, it is strongly aligned with the United Nations' Social Development Goals.

The study enhances the discussion about how intermediaries could encourage social entrepreneurial identity, as well as how intermediary intervention could facilitate the design and implementation of BMIs in the innovation ecosystem.

Immigrant groups often pursue entrepreneurial endeavors in their new home country. Even though both immigrant entrepreneurship and organizational identity have received scholarly attention, there has been little systematic exploration of identity strategies pursued by immigrant-owned organizations. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework that draws on the concepts of liability of foreignness and social identity theory in the context of immigrant entrepreneurship. Our framework explores how immigrant entrepreneurs may negotiate identities for their firms through the development of specific identity strategies that confirm or underplay their national/ethnic identities in order to survive in their immediate environment. We develop a model that shows how these confirmations or underplaying strategies work both for firms that have an individualistic entrepreneurial orientation, as well as those with a collective/associative entrepreneurial orientation. We also suggest two contextual moderators to this relationship: (1) the image of the founder's country of origin, and (2) the presence of immigrant networks in the host country, which may alter the effectiveness of identity strategies in terms of organizational mortality outcomes.

Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs (RWMEs) are amongst the largest EU migrant communities in the UK and make significant socioeconomic contributions to both their host and origin nations, but academic research and policy discussions have ignored them. Intersectionality raises complex contextual issues that require comprehensive examination and inclusive policies and programmes. This study is aimed at exploring how Romanian women migrant entrepreneurs experience their transnational intersectional journeys of belonging, as they create, negotiate and enact their intersectional identities of the country of origin, gender and being entrepreneurs in the UK and Romania.

This Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) draws on draws upon Crenshaw's (1991) intersectional and Social Identity theories (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) to investigate how nine interviewed RWMEs have experienced their transnational journeys of acculturative belonging in the UK and Romania.

The study findings show how RWMEs undo and negotiate their intersecting identities to adhere to socio-cultural standards in both their host and native nations. In the UK, they feel empowered as women entrepreneurs, but in patriarchal Romania, their entrepreneurial identity is revoked, contradicting the prescribed socio-cultural roles.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

This study responds to the call regarding inequalities in entrepreneurship opportunities (Vershinina et al., 2022). By focussing on the understudied community of RWMEs and exploring new intersectional and transnational contextual insights, it contributes to the literature and practice of migrant entrepreneurship. These empirical findings are essential for the development of evidence-based, disaggregated entrepreneurship programmes and policies.

Purpose: Entrepreneurial teams are one of the most crystallized forms of collaboration in the generically collective dynamics underpinning social entrepreneurship. Despite their quantitative prevalence, social entrepreneurial teams (SETs) remain quite absent from the scholarly literature. This chapter aims to develop a research agenda addressing this gap. Methodology/Approach: This chapter first reviews the scarce literature dealing with this subject and develops an operationalizable definition of SETs. Next, it confronts current knowledge on entrepreneurial teams with the specific context of social entrepreneurship to introduce and discuss main topics of investigation on SETs. Findings: Six topics are suggested to have a high potential for developing knowledge on SETs: formation, size and extended team, gender, decision-making and leadership, identity, and turnover. Research Implications: This chapter frames these research avenues within a developmental stages perspective with the aim to contribute to help form and maintain effective SETs. Originality/Value of Chapter: This research has implications for scholars as it defines SETs as a distinct object for research, which allows extending knowledge on collaborative dynamics in social entrepreneurship, but also on entrepreneurial teams in general. The suggested research agenda and its orientation toward the development of effective SETs should be a springboard for future research on this subject.

The purpose of this paper is to study how a social venture perceives and constructs its identity. This study highlights the importance of a common cause and collective entrepreneurial identity when studying entrepreneurial cognition in a social entrepreneurship context. The study also introduces the concept of identity layers. These aspects have not been emphasized in previous research and, therefore, there is a lack of knowledge in this specific area. The research question that this paper sets out to explore is “What influences the identity perception of a social venture and how does the identity construction process affect organizational behavior?”.

The paper starts by presenting references to previous research in social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial cognition and organizational identity, thereby building a theoretical context for the case study. The case chosen is the cultural heritage site Rosenlund located in Pietarsaari, Finland. The study is based on qualitative data. Previous research on entrepreneurial identity has often been based on narrative analysis and discourse analysis (Jones et al., 2008; Down and Warren, 2006). To get a different point of view, this analysis concentrates more on behavior and outcomes, but in combination with narratives. The data analysis starts out by mirroring Rosenlund in the categorization of Zahra et al. (2009) and then moves on to taking a closer look at the organizational identity and how it is constructed.

The results from the case study show that the identity perception and the identity construction process are strongly affected by the mission (i.e. the cause) of the organization. Due to limited resources, the organization needs to be flexible, but the organization is under no circumstances ready to compromise its values. To avoid this potential dilemma, the organization has created an identity consisting of many layers, where the outer layer is thinner and more inclusive, thus providing the flexibility needed. This way of constructing identity clearly impacts the way the organization works.

The results indicate that Rosenlund identity-wise perceives itself mainly as a collective actor. The entrepreneurial actions undertaken cannot be assigned to one single actor, but instead to a group of people. This does not rhyme very well with existing entrepreneurial cognition research where the focus is on the person, i.e. individual actor. To get a better understanding of social entrepreneurship, “collective entrepreneurial cognition” therefore needs to be studied. The organization studied turned out to be a social constructionist. It remains for future research to investigate if the same layers of identity can be seen in social bricoleurs and social engineers.

The results indicate the importance of identifying and communicating mission and values, i.e. defining core identity. Strategic decisions become easier when the organization has clearly defined its cause and its values, because then the organization will know when to compromise and when to say no in order not to jeopardize the cause. In the long run, this will have a positive effect on the organizational development.

One important finding is the existence of different layers in the organizational identity. This aspect has not been addressed before and can certainly deepen our understanding of social entrepreneurial ventures. Moreover, the findings show that by introducing the concepts of organizational identity and identity building, the focus of the entrepreneurial cognition debate shifts from an individual perspective to a collective perspective. This aspect has not previously been explored in entrepreneurial cognition research.

This paper aims at exploring the dynamics of multiple identities of women entrepreneurs (WE). The paper analyse how WE do identity work in relation to specific identity regulations in the particular French cultural context. The objective is to understand how the entrepreneurial identity process of women is built through both confrontation and synergy with other social identities.

The paper opted for a qualitative and abductive methodological design. In total, 41 French WE from diverse business activities were interviewed. The empirical material was subject to thematic analysis.

The findings reveal the ability of these WE to deal with numerous and various identities. Their daily strategies to accommodate different roles depict how their entrepreneurial activity is intertwined with their personal and social life. The paper are far away from the picture of a monolithic entrepreneur without social dimensions. Given that, the findings broaden the too simplistic vision of WE as an homogeneous whole. Within this group of French WE, the analysis reveals that forms of identity work are along a continuum from accepting conventional norms and social expectations and integrating them in self-identity, or challenging them by accommodation or transformation, or, in turn, by redefining and proposing new norms. It also brings a nuanced understanding of complexity and multidimensionality of their daily life.

Finally by studying French WE, the paper identify new practices, new interactions between social roles which could be also relevant for men. In fact, the study challenges the traditional framework on entrepreneurship, which produces an incomplete view of entrepreneurs, by omitting historical and social variables. This disembodied vision of entrepreneur could not be applied to women and probably could not be applied to contemporaneous men either.

The study deploys Anthias' intersectional framework of social spaces and her concept of translocational positionality to explore the barriers to entrepreneurship for refugee entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom (UK). In particular, the study aims to assess how migrant identities require a specific form of business support.

A total of 32 semi-structured interviews with 14 refugee entrepreneurs and 18 business support agents were conducted between April and October 2022 and, together with field notes, were combined for thematic analysis in NVivo 12.

Organisational, representational, intersubjective and experiential barriers combined to create practical and psychological deterrents to entrepreneurship for refugees. However, an explicitly humanistic and de-centred approach to business support was (partially) able to counter such barriers.

Policymakers and business support agencies should consider intersectional characteristics and the importance of a compassionate and individual approach when designing business support programmes for refugee entrepreneurs.

Two intersectional concepts of social spaces and translocational positionality are brought into conversation with each other, creating a novel approach to framing the barriers to entrepreneurship for refugees.

This study explores aspects of entrepreneurial social identity that are made salient in communication, and that are related to positive group distinctiveness.

The study employs a thematic analysis methodology, and the analysis is sensitized by social identity theory and related concepts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 43 entrepreneurs in several US cities. The women and men discussed the nature of their entrepreneurial identities, and the relationship of past intra- and intergroup conversations to their realizations of a positively-distinct entrepreneurial identity. Open and axial coding of the entrepreneurs' verbal conversational content was conducted.

The analyses revealed four themes (and nine accompanying sub-themes) that represented dimensions of entrepreneurial social identity that were related to positive group distinctiveness.

Findings may prove useful for mutual understanding among current and aspiring entrepreneurs, and for educators and managers with an interest in encouraging entrepreneurial mindsets through training program development.

This study is unique not only in its adoption of an intergroup comparison approach to entrepreneurship that integrates recalled past communication, but also in its focus on positive in-group distinctiveness. The desire for this psychological state may be one motivating force guiding the content of entrepreneurial identity, and it may, for some individuals, be one factor that drives the pursuit of entrepreneurship itself. This study offers themes that break new ground in illuminating dimensions derived from recalled conversational content that entrepreneurs considered key to positive identity salience.