Analyzing Social Entrepreneurship from an Institutional Perspective: Evidence from Spain

Abstract

In recent years, social entrepreneurship (SE) has been regarded as an important source of social, economic and environmental wealth, and many scholars are focusing their inquiries on this emerging area. Little is known, however, concerning the environmental factors that affect this entrepreneurial phenomenon. In this research, we analyze how these factors affect both the emergence and implementation of SE in the highly entrepreneurial Spanish region of Catalonia, using institutional economics as the main conceptual framework. We also apply an inductive theory, building an empirical approach to conducting a multiple-case study in order to develop theoretical propositions that enhance our understanding of the phenomenon.

Key Words:

• Social entrepreneurship
• social entrepreneur
• institutional economics
• case study
• Spain

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Projects SEC2006-06017 and SEJ2007-60995 (Spanish Ministry of Education and Science), and 2005SGR00858 (Catalan Government's Department for Universities, Research and Information Society).