| Abstract |
Purpose - In the current context of economic crisis, there is an increasing need for new approaches for solving social problems without relying upon public resources. With this regard, social entrepreneurship has been arising as an important solution to develop social innovations and address social needs. Social entrepreneurs found new ventures that aim at solving social problems. The main purpose of this research is to identify the general profile of the social entrepreneurs and the main features of social companies, such as geographic scope, profit or non-profit approach, collaborative networks, decision making structure, and typologies of customers that benefit from their social actions. Design/methodology/approach- The present research is based on both primary and secondary sources of data, that were used to perform both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Specifically, we selected two Spanish social entrepreneurs networks, as "Ashoka Spain" and "HUB Madrid", on the basis of their representativeness of Spanish social entrepreneurs. A survey was developed and distributed among the entrepreneurs members of the mentioned networks. This survey covers several aspects, such as the socio-demographic profiles of social entrepreneurs and the main features of their companies. Finally, the results from the statistical analyses were discussed with a panel of experts through personal semi-structured interviews. Originality/value -The conducted research shows general features of social entrepreneurship in Spain. Among the obtained results, it is worth noting the orientation of the companies towards a self-sustaining model without donations and public transfers, the prevalence of women in human resources within companies, the trend towards the creation of global and not local businesses, the prevalence of profit approach over non-profit approach, the adoption of participatory decision making structure, the tendency to establish collaboration with private sector over public sector, and the strong social vocation of entrepreneurs over the perception of business opportunity as motivation inspiring social entrepreneurship initiatives. Practical implications- Results point out that social companies in Spain tend to focus their activities on customers who have their access to basic services and products covered. On the contrary, people belonging to the lower Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) are mainly left unattended by social companies, receiving only the help of the public authorities. Future studies could extend the research through a cross-cultural validation in different countries. |