Social innovation & social opportunities
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Coordinator: Benjamin Huybrechts
Partners: Marthe Nyssens, Dennis Young, Carlo Borzaga, Avner Ben-Ner and Kai Hockerts
To build a supply-side theory, the processes of social entrepreneurship must be better understood, particularly the identification and exploitation of social opportunities. This may help capturing how social enterprises generate social innovation, defined as "innovative activities and services that are motivated by the goal of meeting a social need and that are predominantly developed and diffused through organizations whose primary purposes are social" (Mulgan 2007: 8). Drawing on insights from entrepreneurship, economics, and sociology, the contribution of this TL will be to link the identification of opportunities for social innovation and their concrete exploitation by social entrepreneurs.
Sub-themes in this TL are the following:
- 1.1. Social enterprise and social innovation (coordinators: Marthe Nyssens and Benjamin Huybrechts)
- 1.2. Social opportunities and social entrepreneurship (coordinator: Benjamin Huybrechts)