Understanding Opportunities in Social Entrepreneurship: A Critical Realist Abstraction

Xiaoti Hu, Susan Marlow, Angelika Zimmermann, Lee Martin and Regina Frank

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2020, vol. 44, issue 5, 1032-1056

Abstract: This article extends social entrepreneurship (SE) research by drawing upon a critical realist perspective to analyse dynamic structure/agency relations in SE opportunity emergence, illustrated by empirical evidence. Our findings demonstrate an agential aspect (opportunity actualisation following a path-dependent seeding-growing-shaping process) and a structural aspect (institutional, cognitive and embedded structures necessary for SE opportunity emergence) related to SE opportunities. These structures provide three boundary conditions for SE agency: institutional discrimination, an SE belief system and social feasibility. Within this article, we develop a novel theoretical framework to analyse SE opportunities plus, an applicable tool to advance related empirical research.

Keywords: social entrepreneurship; opportunities; critical realism; context; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:entthe:v:44:y:2020:i:5:p:1032-1056

DOI: 10.1177/1042258719879633

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