Analytical Discourse of Social Entrepreneurship in India

Abstract

This paper is an exploratory attempt to understanding the nature and modus operandi of entrepreneurship in Indian social service sector. This study highlights the point of departure of social entrepreneurship beyond a normal profit-oriented business enterprise to an outcome based on socially desirable benefits. Few cases have been hand-picked for analysing the intriguing nature of this evolving hybrid domain which transpires the boundaries of the public and private enterprises and attempts to build a bridge between the two. Empirical data is spare in number as the number of such ventures is very few. Although it has existed long before the dating of the concept as ‘social entrepreneurship’ was coined, but academic cites William N. Parker’s seminal publication (1954) as one of the first works in this domain. But it was only from 1985 that the concept was actually used again (apart from five sporadic studies in three decades between 1954 and 1985). This paper is an attempt to start the dialogue for the Indian dynamism of social entrepreneurship landscape in the published literature.