Social Entrepreneurship vs. Social Enterprise

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is considered as fundamental to the social and economic development of the society which, through its ability to ``do new things or in a better way'', activates processes that ensure new ways of organizing human activity. Social, political and economic changes, aggravated by globalization and crisis, highlighted the impossibility of both the state and the market to respond efficiently in an innovative way to the needs and demands of the community, especially to those of the vulnerable groups. Along with the traditional actors that are present on the market, social enterprises are the new protagonists that are capable of providing entrepreneurial answers to social needs. They succeed in corresponding to the social dimension. Their innovation consists in adopting innovative business models that tend to hybridize a number of both economic elements and human resources elements in order to redefine the relations manifesting between the parties involved, by offering products and services that respond to a common need which, at the same time, are capable of generating social and economic value.