Title: Social entrepreneurship competence: evidence from founders of social enterprises in Romania

Authors: Loredana Elisabeta Orhei; Sharda S. Nandram; Joop Vinke

Addresses: Knowledge Centre: Business Development and Co-Creation, HAN University for Applied Science, Ruitenberglaan 31, 6826 CC Arnhem, The Netherlands ' Center for Entrepreneurship and Stewardship, Nyenrode Business University, Straatweg 25, 3621 BG Breukelen, The Netherlands ' Faculty of Economics and Management, Arnhem Business School, HAN University of Applied Science, Ruitenberglaan 31, 6826 CC Arnhem, The Netherlands

Abstract: Social entrepreneurship has been defined until now by borrowing insights from commercial, Schumpeterian entrepreneurship as well as a new way of looking at non-profit work (Peredo and McLean, 2006; Short et al., 2009). Inspired by the use of a competence perspective to define entrepreneurship (European Commission, 2005), our main purpose in this article is to apply a competence perspective to social entrepreneurship, using a multidimensional framework. We start by looking at social entrepreneurship in the context of commercial entrepreneurship research. Next, we describe the concepts of competence and entrepreneurial competence as building blocks for our view. Then, we describe the research of the concept of competence for social entrepreneurship among 103 founders of social enterprises in Romania. Our main findings suggest that social entrepreneurship competence is comprised of a large spectrum of social and functional competences (rather than cognitive competence) and motivation to solve social problems.

Keywords: social motivation; Romania; social entrepreneurship; multidimensional framework; entrepreneurial competence; social enterprises; social competences; functional competences.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2015.068780

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2015 Vol.25 No.1, pp.80 - 105

Received: 19 Apr 2014
Accepted: 08 Oct 2014
Published online: 12 Apr 2015 *

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