Understanding the Social Entrepreneurship Diversity From Its Initiatives’ Feature

Abstract

Social entrepreneurial initiatives (SEIs) seek to efficiently meet the basic human needs, that conventional structures fail to satisfy. It is a multidimensional concept whose research field is not delimited, still lacking agreed-upon definitions and orientations. This exploratory study seeks to contribute to the clarification of SEI’ s concept by identifying their features. Therefore, a survey was conducted with 30 participants of intensive training on social entrepreneurship [bootcamp] in Portugal. The data was treated through factor and cluster analysis. The results indicate that most Portuguese SEIs come from third sector organizations seeking to develop efficiency through management practices. The statistically significant features found were management capacity, social capacity, entrepreneurial orientation. Additionally, results suggest that ecosystem and business model features interplay can depict different types of SEI aligned to philanthropy or market tendencies.