The Social Case as a Business Case: Making Sense of Social Entrepreneurship from an Ordonomic Perspective

Abstract

This article discusses how the theoretical perspective of ordonomics provides a frame- work for better understanding and advancing the practice of social entrepreneurship. From an ordonomic perspective, the concept of social entrepreneurship offers a seman- tic innovation (at the ideas level) whose potential for social innovation can be fully reaped only if it is used as a heuristics for social structural change (on the institutions level). Social entrepreneurs recognize relevant social problems, interpret them as an entrepreneurial challenge, and succeed in turning what was a social case into a business case in a broader sense. Using the real-life example of a successful eco-social entrepre- neur, the article demonstrates that such win-win solutions can be reconstructed as the sophisticated management of social dilemmas. It sketches a strategy matrix for the prac- tice of social entrepreneurship and distinguishes four paradigmatic strategies social en- trepreneurs can employ to create win-win scenarios by changing the rules of the game to overcome undesirable social dilemmas. The article concludes by discussing social entrepreneurship in the context of new governance processes and highlights key simi- larities and differences to the concept of corporate citizenship.