Purpose: While the literature has described social entrepreneurs as overwhelmingly occupying a pivotal role in social entrepreneurship (S-ENT) process, there is a high inconsistency prevailing with respect to entrepreneurial traits, attitudes and skills of social entrepreneurs. One explanation for this may be the lack of a suitable scale measuring entrepreneurship orientation of social entrepreneurial individuals. The purpose of this study is to address this gap by proposing an initial assessment tool for individual S-ENT orientation (ISEO). Design/methodology/approach: A mixed methods research design, along with a two-stage Delphi process, helped in generating appropriate constructs for ISEO. While the items for the first dimension of scale were directly derived from the Delphi study, the items of the remaining dimensions were mainly found based on the three individual entrepreneurial orientation dimensions presented by Bolton and Lane. By means of exploratory factor analysis, the final examination of the ISEO items was undertaken through a survey of 71 social entrepreneurs across India. The process eventually resulted in reliable and valid measures for four dimensions of ISEO. Findings: The scale-development process eventually resulted in a 13-item scale, measuring four dimensions of ISEO (social passion, innovativeness, risk-taking and pro-activeness). By developing a set of relevant ISEO indicators, the study answers the call for a scale development of ISEO in S-ENT literature. Research limitations/implications: There is a need to further validate this instrument among other stakeholders (students) as well as in samples with different demographic characteristics across different regions of the country and the world. To further evaluate the reliability and validity properties and to confirm the newly established subscales and their relationship with the ISEO construct, there is need for conducting a confirmatory factor analysis using larger sample sizes. Practical implications: The measurement of SEO at an individual level will assist in S-ENT education, training and development of present and prospective social entrepreneurs, as well as assist individuals who want to assess the strength of their orientation towards S-ENT. The understanding of ISEO at the individual level will be equally useful for S-ENT incubators, the government and other S-ENT stakeholders who are considering supporting S-ENT proposals. Originality/value: The paper is the first to develop an ISEO scale which is based on empirical data in S-ENT field.

Drawing upon the theoretical foundations of the resource-based view, the current research aims to examine the mediating role of open innovation between entrepreneurial orientation, total quality management, and SMEs performance. Open innovation is not new, but SMEs operating in the developing economies are unaware of it importance and need. A structural equation model was used in the study to evaluate the relationships between the data collected from 270 SMEs with the help of adopted questionnaires. The results confirmed the impact of entrepreneurial along with total quality management on open innovation as well as the performance of SMEs. Second, the indirect impact of entrepreneurial orientation along with total quality management via open innovation has also been established which is proven as significant. Owners and managers of SMEs should consider customer-driven practices in an entrepreneurial manner to achieve elevated levels of performance based on the study’s findings.

Entrepreneurial firms’ success is significantly influenced by their capacity to seize market opportunities. At the same time, little is known about when and how entrepreneurs’ alertness to the potential for business opportunities and how it influences their success. To fill this vacuum in the literature on entrepreneurship, the current study focused on identifying the impact that fluctuations in the degree of entrepreneurial networking cause on the relationship between three pertinent dimensions of entrepreneurial attentiveness and the success of entrepreneurial firms. Based on primary data collected from 384 entrepreneurial firms that are operating in Pakistan, using an adapted questionnaire, this study discovered that improvements in dimensions of entrepreneurial alertness have a beneficial impact on the success of entrepreneurial firms. Moreover, the moderating role of entrepreneurial networking has proved significant in the relationships. The effect size of the moderator is also significant and large. This study is also important for the sustainability of entrepreneurial firms because the more they are successful in their mission, the more they will be sustainable. Moreover, the moderating role of entrepreneurial networking that helps them in times of crisis also improves their sustainability. This study also revealed how entrepreneurial alertness works as a driver of entrepreneurial business success and how success is magnified in the presence of a higher degree of entrepreneurial networking. The theoretical, managerial, and policy ramifications of the study are explained at the end, along with limitations and recommendations for future researchers.

Purpose: There have been global upsurge in the social enterprise research & practice considering social enterprise as a rapidly growing thought worldwide. The renewed significance of social enterprises (SE’s) has arisen primarily on account of their assumed potential in solving a range of social problems. The evidences supporting the budding role of SE’s in fostering sustained socio-economic development of regions & communities across globe are evolving continuously. Even though, social entrepreneurship & SE’s have remained central thought provoking domain in the realm of scholarly investigation for a past couple of decades, the emerging literature on SE’s & their role in economic development is riddled with theoretical inconsistencies & definitional controversies. Thus, very little is known about functioning & management of SE’s. For the sake of advancing the field, the purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze the critical success factors (CSF’s) of SE’s operating in different social settings in India. Further, a conceptual model is developed incorporating different factors of social enterprise operation in an integrated framework. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the review of the extant literature, three categories of success factors comprising a total of 38 success factors for SE’s were initially identified. Under each category, the success factors were then classified and reduced to appropriate numbers based upon their importance to SE’s and their repeated manifestations in the literature, making a total of 13 CSF’s under all 3 categories. Based on these 3 categories of CSF’s, a conceptual model was developed. Findings: The study determines thirteen critical factors as contributing to the success of social enterprises: (1) Business planning skills (2) entrepreneurship orientation; (3) leadership; (4) networking; (5) Innovative financing (6) triple bottom line planning; (7) social enterprise marketing; (8) community engagement; (9) human capital; (10) organizational culture; (11) Social Impact Evaluation (12) Frugal innovation & (13) Government support. Originality/value: The paper presents a theoretical research model incorporating factors and determinants of social enterprise success to direct a future research agenda. The paper can further be used by researchers to empirically test critical success factors of social enterprises. Moreover, practitioners can also gain benefits from the conceptual framework & promote social entrepreneurship.

Several kinds of research from both global and local perspectives have discussed social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. Accordingly, this article aims to highlight the key contributors (authors, institutions, countries, journals) and knowledge structure (co-authorship analysis and cooccurrence-of-keyword analysis) of this research domain. Utilizing the bibliographic data of 300 articles extracted from the Scopus database, we primarily employed Biblioshiny software, resulting in 673 authors from 69 different countries and 496 different institutions. Furthermore, the yearly publication of the 300 documents rose from 1 in 1996 to 24 in 2022, with an average age of 6.08 years and a citation rate of 13.79 yearly. Remarkably, the number of publications on this subject accelerated in 2014. According to the study’s findings, the most productive country in line with research publishing is the USA. The most productive institution has been recognized as the Amrita School of Engineering. The most active author is reported to be Kadol N. The most prolific journal is Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. In addition to this, the top three most frequent terms are ‘social development’, ‘economic development’ and ‘entrepreneur. ‘Social entrepreneurship’, ‘social and economic effects’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘social development’ are the latest keywords in this field that predict future trends. Taken collectively, this review is an expedient resource for gaining a thorough grasp of the state of the art and prospective routes for future research.

Social innovation as an outcome of social entrepreneurship represents the primary drive of social enterprises (SEs). In the emergent context of a digitally transforming entrepreneurship scenario, this study intends to investigate the role of digital capabilities (DC) in social innovation performance (SIP) in SEs while considering the underlying effects of a firm-level entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Utilizing a quantitative survey approach, the study acquired a total of 344 valid responses from SEs in Saudi Arabia. The data analysis performed through partial least square structural equation modeling (SmartPLS 3.0) revealed that DC have no direct impact on SIP in SEs. However, DC influence SIP through the full mediation effects of EO dimensions of social proactiveness, and social innovativeness. The mediation effects of social risk-taking on the DC-SIP relationship were not established. This work is the first to conceptualize and test a theoretical framework linking the DC and EO constructs concerning SIP in SEs. As a result, the study produces several academic and managerial implications underpinning social innovation amid the digitally transforming entrepreneurship context in SEs.