Social entrepreneurship: The logic of paradox

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is a paradoxical phenomenon wherein seemingly incompatible elements such as business and social logics coexist. Previous research has been insufficient to systematically describe how social entrepreneurship organizations (SEO) try to balance these logics and why these same paradoxical elements make social entrepreneurship what it is. Using the systematic literature review method, this paper examines six major paradoxes and how they affect both the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship by furthering the nascent discussion about the role of paradoxes in SEOs. Viewed through the lens of organizational logics, this paper argues that the dynamic interplay between these paradoxes initiates and drives the innovations and changes necessary for the very existence of SEOs.