The new social entrepreneurship what awaits socialentrepreneurial ventures?Edited by Francesco Perrini. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham,UK. 2006

Miguel-Ángel Galindo

Published online: 16 November 2007# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007

During the last decades the concept of entrepreneurship has been introduced in theeconomic analysis. It is not a new idea, different authors, Marshall, Schumpeter,Keynes, among others, considered the important role of the entrepreneurship in theeconomic behaviour. However, after the Second World War economists were lessinterested in this figure centring their attention in different instruments andobjectives.

Depending of the decades, fiscal or monetary policies were defended and used bydifferent policy makers in the design of their economic policies and the objectives tobe achieved were mainly unemployment or inflation. This view changed in the lastyears of the last century when economists were worried on other policy goals,chiefly, economic growth and on the possibilities to make more efficient the labourmarkets to reduce unemployment rates.

In this period, new instruments were considered to achieve these objectives. Thestatistical and econometric methods improvements facilitated the consideration ofnew variables, not only quantitative but also qualitative, in the economic growthanalysis. In this sense, variables such as social capital, human capital, rule of law,etc. were introduced in the analysis. And entrepreneurship was also a variable to beconsidered.

The consideration of entrepreneurial activities in the economic analysis facilitatesthe analysis and the development of different effects of the entrepreneurship. In thissense, nowadays social entrepreneurship has a relevant role because introduces theconsideration of the responsibilities of business in the society, introducing thereforesocial and qualitative aspects, that sometimes has not been contemplated by theeconomic analysis, and the necessity of considering other aspects, such as law,ethics, etc.

Int Entrep Manag J (2008) 4:101–103DOI 10.1007/s11365-007-0066-8

NO66; No of Pages

M.-Á. Galindo (*)Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Fac. CC. EE. y EE., Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha,Plaza de la Universidad, 1 02071, Albacete, Spaine-mail: mgalindo@teleline.es

The book edited by Francesco Perrini analyses different aspects of the socialentrepreneurship that re examined in the fifteen articles including in it. As it isrecognised in the preface (p. xvi) the main objectives of the book are: to analyse thesocietal entrepreneurship, to examine current understanding of societal entrepreneurship,to develop the academic debate and to develop the conceptual framework for newsocietal enterprises.

These contributions can be divided in two main sections. The first one istheoretical and includes the first six chapters. The second considers different casesand situations of enterprises and includes nine articles.

The first one examines contemporary approaches on social entrepreneurshipintroducing them in the body of research taking into account the role of theresponsibilities of business in society. The author develops the definition ofsocial entrepreneurship, showing the need for studying this subject, as well as thedifferent aspects to be included in the domain of social entrepreneurshipresearch.

Chapter 2 focuses on social entrepreneurship ventures, considering mainly thedifferent issues that a socially innovate entrepreneur faces in order to create andsustain organizations. Therefore, social entrepreneurship is a process that integratesentrepreneurial and innovation perspectives with the different action to be taken inorder to achieve the society welfare. In this sense, environment in which the socialentrepreneurship operates has an important role in order to facilitate or to stop hisdevelopment. Three factors must be considered: the extent to which the economicenvironment is developed; the competitive environment within the organizationoperates; and the presence of a supportive environment.

Chapter 3 shows that the process of creating new social enterprises is not verydifferent to the process of firms in other fields. The authors describe the start upphase for a social entrepreneurship, identifying the opportunities, key resources andthe individuals that must to be considered in the process.

Chapter 4 focuses on the finding financing process for social start-ups. A venturecapital process model is developed that is compared with the traditional one. Theauthor examines innovation financial instruments considering the traditional venturecapital process at the new light of the social entrepreneurship.

Chapter 5 addresses the role of the new supportive individuals in order to financesocial entrepreneurial activities. The author examines the venture philanthropy that isan alternative form of charity based on the application of venture capital principles tothe social entrepreneurship organizations. The author develops in this chapterventure philanthropy models in practice showing the most relevant barriers to thedevelopment of this philanthropy, mainly: lack of a proper network, differentmeanings for societal wellbeing, inadequate business plan, financing timing...

Finally chapter 6 examines the peculiarities and organizational challengesassociated to the development and implementation of social entrepreneurship.Topics related to the characteristics of social entrepreneur, the strategy, coordinationmechanisms, reward systems, practises..., are considered.

As it was stated before, second section groups different articles concerning thebehaviour of some private industries in some countries. Chapter 7, focuses onLocalFeed, a South African producer and distributor of animal feeds. The company,founded in late 2000, produces high quality feed for cattle, poultry and pigs.

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Tourism industry is studied in chapter 8, for the case of Turkey. The projectanalysed tries to demonstrate that it is possible to achieve a sustainable tourism, notonly in Turkey but also in the Mediterranean area.

An example of social benefits derived from social entrepreneurship is consideredin the San Patrignano examined in chapter 9. San Patrignano is a drug rehabilitationcommunity located in the town of Rimini.

The case of fair trade is considered in the case study of Cafédirect Ltd., London,describing its progress over the past ten years (chapter 10).

Private-institutional experiences are considered in the next two chapters. Chapter11 considers the Sekem case that includes different business such as medical centre,schools y an academy. Chapter 12 analyses the Teleserenitá that offers homeassistance services for non autonomous elderly individuals in Italy.

The role of the technology and its effects for social innovation is considered in theBenetech study case, chapter 13, an enterprise that designs technologies for underserved markets in the fields of literacy, education, human rights...

The last two chapters are dedicated to the possibilities of social entrepreneurshippractices. Chapter 14 focused on Watershed agreement, in New York Cityintroducing water quality control. Chapter 15 shows some of the innovativealliances that exist in developed and developing countries.

All in all the book analysis a modern and relevant topic in the entrepreneurshipsubject, not only from the theoretical point of view, but also considering some studycases, giving an important information on the situation, possibilities and perspectivesof the social entrepreneurships.

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