Sustainability and Innovation Perspectives in Social Enterprises: A Comparative Analysis Across Asia and Europe

Social challenges require new forms of entrepreneurship to respond to the evolution of demand. In this scenario, social enterprises emerge as they pursue multiple objectives combining the economic and the social component. This study aims to shed light on the drivers of social entrepreneurship in two different contexts of social entrepreneurship, namely European and Asian. A qualitative content analysis on international reports highlighted two drivers to compare (a) sustainability and (b) innovation, aimed at outlining the prevailing model(s). An analysis of companies is run to compare the drivers of social entrepreneurship arising from policy and context. The results demonstrate the multidimensional nature of the phenomenon which responds to specific inputs depending on the institutional solidity, still with contextual differences making different the alignment between macro-level and business level. The evidence obtained offers a series of theoretical and practical implications to be considered in improving the community well-being pursued through social entrepreneurship.