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Top1. Introduction
There is increasing interest in exploring the capabilities of rising power firms, the nature of their social embeddedness in domestic and host-country communities and the distinctiveness and development impact of their specific firm strategies (Giuliani et al., 2014; Giuliani & Macchi, 2014; Sinkovics et al., 2014a, 2014b). As Smith (2000) predicted, the 21st century is considered the ʻVoluntary Centuryʼ, where Homo Voluntas - the volunteer person - plays an important role in civil society by contributing to public good. Social entrepreneurship and social innovation have, in the past decade, garnered attention from policy makers, academics, practitioners, and the general public as they have volunteered to bring good to the society. Both are important tools to tackle social challenges and to respond to them when the market and the public sector do not.
Social entrepreneurship and social innovation are part of the solution, as they both explicitly aim to provide innovative solutions to unsolved social problems, putting social value creation at the heart of their mission in order to improve individuals’ and communities’ lives and increase their well-being. As an alternative to the focus on financial value creation, social entrepreneurship is primarily concerned with the creation of social value for disenfranchised members of society. Bill Drayton, who is considered to the godfather of social entrepreneurs, is widely credited with bringing the term ‘social entrepreneur’ into the mainstream. Since 1981, his organization, Ashoka, has been supporting leading social enterprises around the world. With 3,500 fellows from 92 countries, Ashoka has built a formidable network, but their ultimate goal is to help build a world where everyone can make a change and every person has the power and ability to contribute towards making positive changes in the world.
To date, relatively little attention has focused on understanding the process by which social entrepreneurs mobilize resources to initiate, develop, and grow their enterprises. If we are genuinely committed to the long haul that is social enterprise, it is important to understand its context, impediments and scope. Similarly social innovation is not only a constraint, it is also an opportunity. There are business opportunities and synergies to be exploited in better integrating social challenges at the core of innovation activities. Social challenges have a strong mobilizing effect, which would allow gathering of competences and resources, beyond sectors and disciplines boundaries. The growth of modern economic systems has generated more numerous, complex and urgent social challenges. Today, there is a growing consensus that the disconnection between economic growth and social welfare is increasing. Growth does not automatically lead to social welfare anymore, or not as much as it used to be under the previous growth regime. This results in the persistence of social challenges even in countries with significant economic growth and a growing social division between different population classes and countries