Social Entrepreneurship
Rhetoric, Reality, and Research: Building a Solid Foundation for the Practice of Social Entrepreneurship
By Beth Battle Anderson and J. Gregory Dees Beth Anderson and Greg Dees raise questions about some of the rhetoric around “earned income strategies” in arguing that the nascent field of social entrepreneurship needs to build a strong foundation of rigorous, yet practically-oriented, research, particularly by engaging business school researchers. Chapter 7 in Social Entrepreneurship: […]
Philanthropy and Enterprise: Harnessing the Power of Business and Social Entrepreneurship for Development
By J. Gregory Dees Social entrepreneurs and supportive philanthropists are challenging conventional assumptions by deliberately using business ventures to serve the public good. This idea of using market forces in strategic ways to promote social improvements is not new, but what is new is the openness and enthusiasm with which entrepreneurial, market-oriented approaches are being […]
Cultivate Your Ecosystem
by Paul N. Bloom and J. Gregory Dees Social entrepreneurs not only must understand the broad environment in which they work, but also must shape those environments to support their goals, when feasible. Borrowing insights from the field of ecology, the authors offer an ecosystems framework to help social entrepreneurs create long-lasting and significant social […]
Taking Social Entrepreneurship Seriously
By J. Gregory Dees The article discusses the concept of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship emerged in the 1980s from the work of Bill Drayton that provided fund for social innovators around the world. It comes into its own in the last decade, and captures the imaginations of many thoughtful observers. It has the potential to […]
Enterprising Social Innovation: Focusing Research on the Most Intriguing Form of Social Entrepreneurship
By J. Gregory Dees and Beth Battle Anderson [This is an edited excerpt from a longer paper by the same authors entitled “Framing a Theory of Social Entrepreneurship: Building on Two Schools of Practice and Thought.” The original paper was published in Research on Social Entrepreneurship: Understanding and Contributing to an Emerging Field, ARNOVA Occasional […]
Framing a Theory of Social Entrepreneurship: Building on Two Schools of Practice and Thought
By J. Gregory Dees and Beth Battle Anderson Social entrepreneurship has been gaining momentum as an academic subject. In the past decade, numerous schools, particularly, but not exclusively, business schools, have launched new courses, programs, centers, or research initiatives embracing variations on this theme. Even with this flurry of activity, as a field of intellectual […]
The Past, Present, and Future of Social Entrepreneurship
By Katherine Fulton and J. Gregory Dees In February 2006, New Profit Inc. hosted a Gathering of Leaders at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. There, a group of visionary social entrepreneurs, along with leaders from business, policy, academia, and philanthropy, participated in a dialogue to create an action agenda addressing our nation’s […]
Entrepreneurship in Philanthropy
By J. Gregory Dees Entrepreneurship occurs in all spheres of productive human endeavor, including philanthropy. It is the major force for progress. In this article, Dees addresses what it means to be an entrepreneur in philanthropy and outline a range of entrepreneurial strategies in philanthropy. CASE, 2005 Article_Dees_EntrepreneurshipinPhilanthropy_2005
Mission-Driven Social Enterprise: Integrating Income and Impact
By Beth Battle Anderson Response to two papers with the conclusion: “While the practice of social enterprise is not new, our understanding of it is still extremely limited, and most arguments for or against it draw almost exclusively on a select number of confirming examples. Now is the time for a research agenda that explores […]
Putting Nonprofit Business Ventures in Perspective
By J. Gregory Dees In the lead chapter in a “how-to” manual for social enterprise produced by the Yale-Goldman Sachs Foundation Partnership on Nonprofit Ventures, Greg Dees lays out cautionary words about the challenges, costs, and risks associated with nonprofit business ventures and provides careful guidance on writing and implementing a business plan for a […]