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A Quantitative Comparison of Social

and Commercial Entrepreneurship:
Toward a More Nuanced Understanding
of Social Entrepreneurship
Organizations in Context
a b b
SOPHIE BACQ , CHANTAL HARTOG & BRIGITTE HOOGENDOORN
c
a
D’Amore-McKim School of Business , Northeastern University ,
Boston , MA , USA
b
Panteia/EIM Business and Policy Research , Zoetermeer , The
Netherlands
c
Department of Applied Economics, Erasmus School of
Economics , Erasmus University Rotterdam , Rotterdam , The
Netherlands
Published online: 22 Feb 2013.
To cite this article: SOPHIE BACQ , CHANTAL HARTOG & BRIGITTE HOOGENDOORN (2013)
A Quantitative Comparison of Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Toward a More
Nuanced Understanding of Social Entrepreneurship Organizations in Context, Journal of Social
Entrepreneurship, 4:1, 40-68, DOI: 10.1080/19420676.2012.758653
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Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 2013
Vol. 4, No. 1, 40–68, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2012.758653
A Quantitative Comparison of Social and

Commercial Entrepreneurship: Toward a
More Nuanced Understanding of Social
Entrepreneurship Organizations in Context
SOPHIE BACQa, CHANTAL HARTOGb &

BRIGITTE HOOGENDOORNb,c
a
D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA; bPanteia/EIM Business
and Policy Research, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands; cDepartment of Applied Economics, Erasmus School of
Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT This study empirically addresses the differences between social and commercial entre-
preneurship by using the largest available quantitative data source, namely the Global Entre-
preneurship Monitor (GEM) 2009 survey on social entrepreneurship in Belgium and The
Netherlands. We use a combination of exploratory statistical analyses and qualitative techniques
to generate propositions on the organizations and initiatives that social entrepreneurs are involved
in and contrast them with our understanding of commercial entrepreneurs. This study contributes
to answer the call for more quantitative research and simultaneously argues that, despite the po-
tential contribution of large-scale data, the validity and reliability of measurement instruments
cannot be seen independently from their particular context. With this important observation in
mind, our findings indicate a predominance of younger social organizations or initiatives that rely
to a great extent on government funding, whereas earned income is limited. Furthermore, social
entrepreneurs show less ambition in terms of employment growth and progression to more mature
stages of the entrepreneurial process compared with commercial entrepreneurs.
KEY WORDS: Social entrepreneurship, commercial entrepreneurship, organizational features,

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), quantitative analysis, context
1. Introduction
Social entrepreneurship, broadly defined as individuals, organizations, or ini-
tiatives engaged in entrepreneurial activities with a social goal (Seelos and
Mair 2007, Bosma and Levie 2010), has received increasing recognition from
the public sector, the media, the population at large as well as from scholars
*Corresponding author. Email: s.bacq@neu.edu
Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

A Quantitative Comparison of Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship 41
(Short et al. 2009, Hoogendoorn et al. 2010). Despite this growing attention
and recognition, social entrepreneurship is still a research field in its infancy,
characterized by conceptual ambiguity, blurry boundaries with other fields, a
limited number of empirical studies, and a modest base for theory building
and testing purposes (Hoogendoorn 2011). As far as empirical research is
concerned, case-study design predominates, and insights tend to be based on
successful social entrepreneurs and their organizations (Sharir and Lerner
2006, Dacin et al. 2010). Limited variety in research design may partly be
explained by a lack of large-scale quantitative datasets (Short et al. 2009) and
methodological challenges to measure social entrepreneurship (Lepoutre
et al. 2011). As a consequence, there is a lack of knowledge regarding this
type of entrepreneurs, the occurrence of this phenomenon, and the factors
that influence successful social enterprise initiatives.

However, a limited number of large-scale datasets have been recently ex-
plored or designed (e.g., the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics,
known as ‘PSED II’, the US 990 tax form, the Global Entrepreneurship Mon-
itor (GEM), and the Flash Eurobarometer Survey on Entrepreneurship), of-
fering ample opportunities to enable social entrepreneurship research to
evolve beyond descriptive purposes toward more predictive purposes (Snow
and Thomas 1994). Whereas most of the datasets consist of secondary data,
the GEM,1 the largest data collecting effort on regular entrepreneurial activi-
ty, integrated the first theory-based data collection approach specifically
designed to measure social entrepreneurial activity across countries. As such,
this unique dataset is taking account of some of the ongoing controversial
debates in this particular field, such as the importance of the social mission
within the hierarchy of objectives, the importance of innovation, and sources
of funding (Lepoutre et al. 2011). Moreover, the methodology to measure en-
trepreneurship as applied by the GEM was designed as a global measurement
instrument with the objective to capture the different perspectives that exist
across regions and countries. Whereas this is one of the unique merits of this
dataset, it is not without disadvantages. The purpose of capturing different
perspectives of social entrepreneurship and increasing the universal applica-
bility of the concept results in sacrificing specificity (i.e., properties and char-
acteristics) and is known as ‘conceptual stretching’ (Sartori 1970, Collier and
Mahon 1993). In particular, Kerlin (2009) demonstrates, drawing on social
origins theory, that a region’s history can shape socioeconomic conditions
that influence the emergence and characteristics of social entrepreneurial ac-
tivity. Hence, the availability of these data simultaneously offers opportuni-
ties to increase our knowledge of social entrepreneurial activities and raises
questions on the validity of the data in a specific context. Both aspects are
addressed in this paper.
This research paper adopts a quantitative, exploratory, and proposition-
generating approach to elementary questions about social entrepreneurship
and its activities in particular, and compares these insights to our understand-
ing of commercial entrepreneurs. More precisely, our research objective is to
generate testable insights into what organizations or initiatives social entre-
preneurs are involved in. We focus on the organizational dimension as the
42 S. Bacq et al.
concurrent social and financial value creation is likely to result from innova-
tive business models and sustainability strategies that might differ from com-
mercial ones. The question of the distinction between social and commercial
entrepreneurship is exploratory by nature as no dominant pattern could be
established in the literature. Therefore, we apply an inductive approach to the
subject matter and use different sources of information. For this purpose, we
first provide an extensive literature review of key organizational characteris-
tics (i.e., age of organization or initiative, size, funding, and innovation) of
both commercial entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship before com-
plementing these views with insights from two sources of empirical data. As
our quantitative data source, we draw on data from the GEM 2009 survey
for Belgium and The Netherlands. In addition, we enrich the insights from
our quantitative data and the literature review with in-depth interviews with
a variety of key informants from both countries with the purpose of interpret-
ing the data in its particular context. Key informants consist of national
experts in social entrepreneurship, representatives of the nonprofit/NGO sec-
tor, or the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement. Common pat-
terns, covering organizational characteristics such as the firm age, size,
funding sources, or degree of innovation, are subsequently formulated as
propositions to be confirmed in future research. In addition, a critical reflec-
tion on issues of measurement and formulation of the survey questions used
by GEM is provided in the discussion.
The contribution of this paper to the extant literature on social entre-
preneurship is threefold. First, and most importantly, this study extends our
current knowledge of social entrepreneurial activities by comparing social en-
trepreneurship organizations to their commercial counterparts on a range of
characteristics including the age of the firm, the number of people it employs,
its funding sources, or its degree of innovation. This contrasts with other em-
pirical studies that tend to focus on a given set of (usually successful) social
entrepreneurs and omit control groups. Second, this study not only extends
our current knowledge of this subject, but also formulates propositions that
may serve as a basis for theory building and testing purposes. Third, from a
methodological point of view, this study offers insights from what may be
considered as the most state-of-the-art dataset currently available on social
entrepreneurial activity in a field that is dominated by case studies. We ad-
dress the issue of ‘conceptual stretching’ (Collier and Mahon 1993) by stress-
ing the importance of the surrounding socioeconomic context to the nature of
social entrepreneurship activities and to the validity and interpretation of the
data. This critical positioning of the paper is all the more relevant given the
expected stream of research using this particular dataset that is likely to
emerge in the years to come.
This paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 reviews the extant conceptual and
empirical literature on social entrepreneurship organizations and initiatives.
Section 3 presents the data, followed by a description of the methodology
used to investigate our research question. In line with our methodological
choices, Section 4 presents our results regarding various aspects of the
organizational dimension of social entrepreneurial activity. We address the
extent to which the insights gained from our large-scale survey data add,
confirm, or contradict the extant literature and we complement our results by
qualitative insights gained from interviews with key informants. For each
studied aspect, we formulate research propositions. These propositions are
discussed in Section 5, along with opportunities for future research. The study
limitations including an exchange of views on measurement validity are
discussed in Section 6 before concluding.
2. Literature: Social Entrepreneurship and Organizational Characteristics

2.1. Social Entrepreneurship

In this section, we set the stage for further exploration of the organizational
characteristics of social entrepreneurship. We do so by reviewing entre-
preneurship and social entrepreneurship literatures and by addressing corre-
sponding controversial debates. Before providing a literature review of social
organizational characteristics, social entrepreneurship will be defined.
Despite definitional ambiguity, there seems to be consensus that it is moti-
vation and the relative importance of social value creation (as opposed to eco-
nomic value creation) that distinguishes social entrepreneurs from
commercial entrepreneurs (Zahra et al. 2009, Dacin et al. 2010). In this pa-
per, we broadly define social entrepreneurial activity as ‘individuals, organi-
zations or initiatives engaged in entrepreneurial activities with a social goal’
(Seelos and Mair 2007, Bosma and Levie 2010). This definition reflects some
basic assumptions about social entrepreneurship on which the empirical part
of this study is based: (1) social entrepreneurship is a process of entrepreneur-
ial activities that include discovering, evaluating, and pursuing opportunities
and that does not necessarily involve new venture creation; (2) social entre-
preneurship includes formally constituted and informal organizations and
activities initiated and launched by individuals or teams; (3) social entre-
preneurship intentionally aims to pursue a social goal but may also pursue
other objectives such as financial ones. Hence, this definition of social entre-
preneurship captures an extensive range of praxis: it encompasses nonprofit,
for-profit, and hybrid forms of organizations, originating from the private,
the public, or the third sector without any restriction on their legal form, in-
come earning strategies, scope of activities, innovativeness, or sectors in
which they operate.
This does not mean that these aspects are not highly debated among schol-
ars. In particular, the importance of innovation and the role of earned income
versus other sources of funding are subject to ongoing debate. These two ele-
ments are also at the source of variety among social entrepreneurship organi-
zations and initiatives that are worth investigating (Terjesen et al. 2012).
These two aspects together with organizational characteristics, such as the
age of the social organization and their size, are addressed in the remainder
of this paper.
44 S. Bacq et al.
2.2. Age of the Social Entrepreneurship Organization or Initiative
Several empirical studies that concern the age of social businesses or activities
all point in the same direction: they tend to be young and mainly represented
in the early stages of the entrepreneurial process. Hoogendoorn and Van der
Zwan (2011), for example, using a sample of approximately 6,000 social
entrepreneurs in 36 countries, find that organizations are mainly represented
in the pre-start-up or infancy stage of creating a social business. A UK-based
study by Harding and Cowling (2006) shows evidence of a relatively high rate
of ‘nascent social entrepreneurship’, a significantly lower rate of ‘young social
business entrepreneurship’ and a relatively higher rate of ‘social established
entrepreneurship’.2 Still in UK, another study conducted by the Social Enter-
prise Coalition finds, based on 962 telephone interviews with senior individu-
als within British social enterprises, that a third of them had been in existence
for four years and that 50% of the enterprises began their activities after the
year 2000 (Leahy and Villeneuve-Smith 2009). Terjesen et al. (2012) found
that few social entrepreneurs manage to run their venture for more than
42 months, although they note that innovation-driven economies (which
Belgium and The Netherlands are both part of) show higher rates of estab-
lished social enterprises. In other words, there seems to be a large number of
recently created social businesses. Hence, we expect the age of social entre-
preneurship organizations (or initiatives) to be rather low compared with
commercial entrepreneurship.
2.3. Size of the Social Entrepreneurship Organization or Initiative

While the age of social entrepreneurship organizations has only been sub-
jected to a few empirical studies, size in terms of employees has been more dis-
cussed in the literature. When it comes to human resources, social
entrepreneurs are working with a wide variety of employees in terms of for-
mal and informal relations and types of contracts (Turner and Martin 2005,
Vidal 2005, Nyssens 2006). A study by Vidal and Claver (2006), based on
15 Spanish social enterprises, distinguishes between two types of social organ-
izations: market-oriented versus care and services provider. The former have
greater professional resources and fewer volunteers both in terms of time and
money, whereas the latter have a greater presence of volunteers in the work-
force. In care and services provider type of enterprises, employees normally
have a temporary relationship with the social enterprise and a part-time
working week is the norm; in market-oriented enterprises, indefinite full-time
employment contracts prevail. Still, given the relatively broad meaning gener-
ally attributed to social entrepreneurship organizations, it has been somewhat
difficult for researchers to conclude on any trend regarding their size in terms
of turnover or numbers of employees. Leahy and Villeneuve-Smith (2009), in
their UK-based Social Enterprise Survey, conclude that social enterprises are
similar to businesses in general in that a large majority is small and medium
sized (i.e., turnover below £25 million and/or fewer than 250 employees).
However, differentiating between categories of social organizations, such as
NGOs, nonprofits, and hybrid organizations, may be useful in order to deter-
mine whether social entrepreneurship shows a different pattern from that of
commercial entrepreneurship.
Whereas the literature review of the previous two organizational character-
istics (i.e., age and size) is mainly based on a limited number of empirical con-
tributions, the next two characteristics are represented in a larger set of
empirical studies with a more conceptual setup. Both characteristics (i.e.,
earned income and innovativeness) are subject to ongoing debate, as we de-
velop in the coming sections.
2.4. Earned Income

Two approaches to social organizations’ funding predominate at the concep-

tual level. On the one hand, some expect social entrepreneurship organiza-
tions to be funded by means of earned income-generating activities – i.e.,
income resulting from some form of sale of a product or service (Oster et al.
2004, Mair and Martı 2006). This trend has emerged over the last few years,
especially in the United States (US), in reaction to an increased demand on
their services and important cuts in public funding (Phills et al. 2008) and
against a background of a long tradition of market reliance. The generation
of earned income is argued to be a more reliable path to financial sustainabili-
ty, compared with donations and grants (Dees 1998a). Accordingly, several
researchers (e.g., Emerson and Twersky 1996, Weisbrod 1998, Boschee 2001)
have advocated the role of earned income in reducing social organizations’
dependence on outside sources of funding and allowing cross-subsidization.
On the other hand, the opponents to this ‘earned income approach’
(Defourny and Nyssens 2010, p. 40) have argued that earned income is not a
sufficient condition (Mair and Martı 2009). They argue that ‘social entre-
preneurship is about finding new and better ways to create and sustain
social value’ (Battle Anderson et al. 2002, p. 192). Even when organized as
for-profits, social organizations’ focus should be on the social value proposi-
tion rather than on its economic activities. As such, Light (2005, p. 18) insists
that ‘social entrepreneurs need not (to) engage in social enterprise or use mar-
ket-based tools to be successful’. This movement considers earned income as
one of the many options to fund a social organization or initiative. Other
options are monetary resources such as subsidies, donations, and grants, and
nonmonetary resources such as volunteers, even though some for-profit social
organizations now turn to venture capitalists.
Despite the ongoing debate, social entrepreneurship organizations or initia-
tives do, in practice, turn to different sources of funding (e.g., earned income,
fees from users, public subsidies, and volunteers), depending on their profit
status, among others. When organized as nonprofits, for example, they are
likely to turn to government subsidies and private donations because a non-
distribution constraint prevents the distribution of generated profits in the
form of stocks and dividends to remunerate financial investors. Such a fund-
ing mix has been found at the empirical level, both in Europe (mainly UK)
and in US.
46 S. Bacq et al.
A recent study of European charities shows that 47% of their sources come
from earned income – voluntary workforce representing 45% of their income
and 8% coming from investment (Defourny and Nyssens 2010). Focusing on
the UK context, Peattie and Morley (2006) insist on this funding mix as a
unique characteristic of social enterprises. They find that the majority of so-
cial enterprises surveyed turned mainly to grant and donation funding, the
rest being dependent on earned income. Still in UK, Smallbone and Welter
(2001) find that social enterprises fund their activities by a mix of market,
nonmarket, and nonmonetary resources such as voluntary work. Vidal (2005)
finds that 80% of Work Integration Social Enterprises’ (WISE) income comes
from earned income (2/3 to the private sector and 1/3 to the public sector),
the remainder coming from subsidies, grants, and fixed-asset disposals. How-
ever, Amin et al. (2002) find that most social enterprises operate on a local
scale and only a small proportion manages to make the transition from phi-
lanthropy and government subsidy to financial independence through earned
income. In addition, a study conducted in US by Foster and Bradach (2005)
shows that earned income counts for only a small share of funding in most
nonprofit domains and few ventures actually make money. This could be due
to the challenges induced by the tension between implementing earned income
strategies while pursuing a social mission (Pharoah et al. 2004, Foster and
Bradach 2005, Seelos and Mair 2005). Indeed, whether earned income strate-
gies need to be directly related to their mission remains subject to debate.3 Be-
ing able to keep a balanced mix between earned income streams, grant
funding, and/or partnerships with a for-profit organization, has been seen as
the key to sustainability (Reis and Clohesy 2001, Hare et al. 2007). Given
these preliminary empirical findings, we suspect that social organizations and
initiatives have recourse to a mix of resources, including but not restricted to
earned income strategies.
2.5. Innovativeness of the Social Entrepreneurship Organization or Initiative

Innovation is considered as a fundamental element of entrepreneurship
(Schumpeter 1990 [1934], Drucker 1985). According to Schumpeter, innova-
tion may involve new products or services, as much as new methods of pro-
duction, new markets, new sources of raw materials, or the reorganization of
an industry. Adopting the Schumpeterian view on social entrepreneurship,
numerous scholars have highlighted the innovative behavior of social entre-
preneurs (e.g., Dees 1998b, Thompson et al. 2000, Mair and Martı 2004,
Nicholls 2006b). In particular, the importance of innovation has been put for-
ward by all the partisans of the so-called ‘Social Innovation School’ (Catford
1998, Schuyler 1998, Dees 1998a, Dearlove 2004, Roberts and Woods 2005,
Austin et al. 2006) according to which innovation is one of the social
entrepreneurship’s defining characteristics. As such, innovativeness helps dis-
tinguish social entrepreneurship from ‘traditional nonprofits’ (Drayton 2002,
Martin and Osberg, 2007, Lepoutre et al. 2011). On the contrary, in their ty-
pology of social entrepreneurs, Zahra et al. (2009) argue that different types
of social initiatives are not all equally innovative in terms of social
significance. In particular, the social engineers, in comparison to social brico-
leurs and social constructionists, are most likely to achieve social change
through innovation.
With regard to the sources of this innovative behavior, Weerawardena and
Sullivan Mort (2006) suggest that increased competitiveness forces this type
of organization to be innovative in all its social value creation activities,
whereas Roberts and Woods (2005) and Mair and Schoen (2007) ascribe in-
novativeness to a general lack of resources. Despite this ongoing conceptual
debate on the importance of innovativeness for social entrepreneurial activi-
ties, innovation is one of the three attributes of the ‘entrepreneurial ori-
entation’, along with ‘pro-activeness’ and ‘risk-taking’ (Miller 1983) and
hence it deserves empirical investigation.
Shaw and Carter (2007), for example, conclude from their case study anal-
yses that innovation and creativity is one of the five main themes of social
entrepreneurship to be borrowed from the entrepreneurship literature. How-
ever, as the authors state, innovation in the social context involves searching
for and applying novel solutions to intractable, long-lasting social problems.
Weerawardena and Sullivan Mort (2006), as well as McDonald (2007), find
that social entrepreneurs themselves perceive their organizations as innova-
tive. McDonald’s (2007) research subsequently shows that self-reported
innovativeness is related to the actual number of innovations developed and
adopted. This finding indicates that the respondents had a reasonably good
idea of how innovative their institutions were in comparison to competitors.
The same study also finds that mission-driven nonprofit organizations are
more likely to develop and adopt innovations faster than competitors.
Despite the ongoing debate on the importance of innovation for social en-
trepreneurial activities, empirical investigations are still rather limited, in par-
ticular those based on large-scale data. It seems fair to conclude that this
characteristic, as well as the pursuit of earned income strategies, has mainly
been taken for granted as one of the social entrepreneurship’s defining ele-
ments, rather than being empirically grounded (Hoogendoorn et al. 2010).
Therefore, this issue deserves further exploration that will be addressed in
this paper.
The next section describes the data used and methodology applied in this
study.
3. Data and Methodology

In this section, we first present our data sources; second, we introduce our
mix-methods approach.
3.1. Data Sources and Definitions

Only a few large-scale datasets are currently available to quantitatively study
social entrepreneurship. PSED II, for example, offers the advantage of a five-
year longitudinal window. However, among the 1,214 ‘nascent entrepreneurs’
48 S. Bacq et al.
who were identified based on a random digit dialing method of over 30,000
US adults, only 94 social entrepreneurs can be identified when using the
entrepreneur’s motivations to start a new business (e.g., ‘help others; help
community’ or ‘aid in economy; economic development’). In US, the 990 tax
forms filed annually by any nonprofit may be another option to study social
entrepreneurship organizations that are organized as nonprofits and have a
certain amount of earned income. Similarly in Canada, the Registered Chari-
ty Information Return form (T3010) can be used to identify federally regis-
tered charities. Those forms are collected every year and the dataset offers up
to six years of longitudinal data.
In this study, we use the Adult Population Survey (APS) conducted by
GEM, the largest available data source, to provide insights into social entre-
preneurship organizations’ distinguishing characteristics. More specifically,

we used the 2009 microlevel data on Belgium and The Netherlands.4 GEM is
an international research program providing harmonized annual data on en-
trepreneurial activity at the national level. The main objectives of the GEM
research program are to enable a cross-country analysis of the level of en-
trepreneurial activity, uncovering determinants of entrepreneurial activity,
identifying policies that may stimulate the level of entrepreneurial activity,
and examining special topics of common concern and/or those that are specif-
ic to an individual country. GEM teams of researchers collect data in each
participating country using a standardized telephone survey among at least
2,000 randomly selected individuals from the adult population (i.e., aged be-
tween 18 and 64 years).
Within the GEM annual survey, the entrepreneurially active adult popula-
tion is identified by means of an initial question that inquires whether the re-
spondent is ‘alone or with others, currently trying to start a new business or
owning and managing a business, including any self-employment or selling
any goods or services to others’. We refer to this group as ‘commercial
entrepreneurs’ throughout the remainder of this paper. In addition, the entre-
preneurially active population can be split into the percentage of the adult
population that is actively involved in setting up a new business (‘nascent en-
trepreneurial activity’), the percentage of the adult population that is an owner–
manager of a business less than 3.5 years old (‘young entrepreneurial activity’),
and the percentage that is an owner–manager of a business that was created
more than 3.5 years ago (‘established entrepreneurial activity’).
In 2009, GEM conducted a special study on social entrepreneurship.5 Data
on social entrepreneurial activity were collected in 49 countries, including
Belgium and The Netherlands. In order to identify the socially entrepreneur-
ially active population, GEM asked each respondent the following question:
‘Are you, alone or with others, currently trying to start or currently owning
and managing any kind of activity, organization or initiative that has a partic-
ularly social, environmental or community objective?’ We refer to this group
as ‘social entrepreneurs’. Whether an objective is considered social or not
thus depends on the respondents’ perception. Note that referring to ‘activity,
organization or initiative’ is broader than ‘starting a new business’ or ‘owning
and managing a business’. In addition, the word ‘social entrepreneurship’ is
avoided and hence the data aim to measure this construct through a series of
indirect questions. When a respondent answered positively to both above-
mentioned questions, a control question checked whether or not these initia-
tives are the same.6 Similar to commercial entrepreneurship, different phases
of social entrepreneurship can be distinguished, including nascent social en-
trepreneurial activity, young social entrepreneurial activity and established
social entrepreneurial activity.
The GEM 2009 dataset shows considerable variation in the prevalence of
social entrepreneurship across countries, ranging from 0.1% in Guatemala to
4.3% in the United Arab Emirates (Bosma and Levie 2010, Hoogendoorn
and Hartog 2010). With respect to the Belgian and Dutch data, we observe
rather low prevalence rates (1.7% and 0.9% of the adult population, respec-
tively). Furthermore, the data reveal that social entrepreneurial activity is less
prevalent than commercial entrepreneurship. Whereas, in total, 151 individu-
als from the pooled Belgo–Dutch adult population (n ¼ 6,122) are involved
in social entrepreneurial activities (both starting and owning–managing a so-
cial activity, organization, or initiative), commercial entrepreneurs are over
three and a half times more numerous than social entrepreneurs (n ¼ 553). Al-
though some individuals are involved in both types of entrepreneurial activi-
ty, these results indicate that social entrepreneurship accounts for about one-
fifth of the total entrepreneurially active population in Belgium and The
Netherlands.
In addition, we generated qualitative data to complement our exploratory
quantitative findings by means of face-to-face interviews with key informants
in both Belgium and The Netherlands. Key informants are national experts
in social entrepreneurship, representatives of the nonprofit/NGO sector and
the CSR movement. We purposefully chose key informants coming from dif-
ferent perspectives, various backgrounds and sectors. An overview of key
informants, their professions and backgrounds, can be found in Table A.1 in
Appendix. The next section presents the methodology applied before present-
ing the results addressing our research question.
3.2. Research Methodology

To generate empirically grounded propositions on social entrepreneurship
and its distinctiveness regarding commercial entrepreneurship, we investigate
a series of organizational characteristics by using a combination of quantita-
tive and qualitative techniques. After offering a brief overview of the current
insights on both entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship literatures, we
explore the GEM data through descriptive analyses and consistently assess
the descriptive of both commercial and social entrepreneurs. These outcomes
are then compared with the literature insights and our qualitative interviews
that shed light on some remarkable results that take account of context speci-
ficity. Key informants were asked, by means of a semi-open interview guide,
(1) to reflect on the descriptive results obtained from our exploratory data
analyses and (2) to comment on the questions used by the GEM researchers
to identify the socially entrepreneurially active adult population.7 Given their
50 S. Bacq et al.
position on the national landscape, they contributed to putting our findings
into context. Propositions are generated when (1) common patterns between
the extant literature and our descriptive results are identified or (2) a combi-
nation of the quantitative insights from the GEM data and the qualitative
insights from the key informants give rise to do so. The results of our quanti-
tative analysis enriched with the insights of the key informants and generated
propositions are presented in the next section, followed by a discussion in
Section 5. A critical reflection on the GEM questions that emerged from our
discussions with the key informants, stressing the importance of a substantive
understanding of local contingencies, is provided in Section 6.
4. Results
In this section, quantitative insights regarding characteristics of the social en-
trepreneurship organization or initiative are combined with insights gained
from interviewing key informants. We describe and analyze the current
knowledge of commercial and social entrepreneurship by subsequently focus-
ing on several characteristics: the age of the organization (or initiative), the
size of the organization (or initiative), the sources of funding, and the degree
of innovation. Subsequently, findings are framed as testable propositions for
future research.
4.1. Results on Age

Table 1 presents prevalence rates for social and commercial entrepreneurship
by phase for Belgium and The Netherlands.
For commercial entrepreneurship, the prevalence rates of established busi-
ness entrepreneurs are higher than nascent and young business entrepreneurs
considered separately. Social entrepreneurship, however, seems to be a rather
early-stage activity as the prevalence rate of total early-stage social entre-
preneurship (nascent plus young business entrepreneurs) is relatively higher
than the social established business entrepreneurship prevalence rate. Our
data suggest that social organizations and initiatives are relatively younger
compared with commercial organizations and, hence, over-represented in the
early stages of entrepreneurial engagement, with about 60% (see Table 1:
1.52/(1.52þ0.99)) of all individuals engaged in social entrepreneurship being
involved in an early-stage activity while almost 40% is involved in an
Table 1. Involvement in social and commercial entrepreneurship, by phase, The Netherlands

and Belgium pooled percentage of the adult population (18–64 years of age)
Phase in the Young Total Established

entrepreneurial process Nascent business early stage business
Social 0.86 0.69 1.52 0.99

Commercial 2.37 2.44 4.79 4.45
Source: GEM Adult Population Survey 2009.

established activity. For commercial entrepreneurs on the other hand, the dis-
tribution over early-stage and established activities is more or less in balance.
This observed pattern of the age of the social entrepreneurship activities by
phase confirms previous empirical research findings. According to Hoogen-
doorn and Van der Zwan (2011), one explanation could lie in the rate of
business closure and related challenges social entrepreneurs face when setting
up their activities. However, additional insights into why this is the case are
needed.
We thus asked our key informants to interpret those first descriptive
findings regarding the age and they came up with three interesting suggestions
relating to the entrepreneur, the environment or the newness of the phenome-
non. First, they suggested that social entrepreneurs’ possible lack of leader-
ship skills and entrepreneurial ability contributes negatively to the survival

prospects. Whereas it has been repeatedly mentioned that serving social and
financial objectives simultaneously makes the conduct of business more com-
plex, influences survival and growth, and puts higher requirements on the so-
cial entrepreneur’s entrepreneurial ability and leadership skills (Austin et al.
2006, Dorado 2006, Mair and Martı 2006, Zahra et al. 2009, Moizer and
Tracey 2010), our experts suggested insufficient human capital to be at the
root of social organizations being underrepresented in more mature stages of
the entrepreneurial process. In addition, this raises a new debate about wheth-
er this type of entrepreneurship appeals to a certain type of individual, such as
idealistic individuals who draw their legitimacy from social and moral sources
rather than their exceptional entrepreneurial ability and leadership skills.
Whereas the literature on leadership in social business is relatively scarce, it
has been acknowledged to play a key role in the success of social entrepre-
neurial ventures (Alvord et al. 2004). Eisenbeiss (2012) offers an interesting
framework and novel approach to address leadership issues in the context of
social entrepreneurial initiatives. Eisenbeiss argues that, in the case of social
entrepreneurship and given the specificities of social ventures (e.g., idealistic
vision of the future, stakeholder versus shareholder orientation, self-transcen-
dent versus self-centric value orientation), we need to consider leadership in a
wider stakeholder context. First, she argues the currently dominant leadership
theories – transformational leadership (e.g., Bass 1985) and social exchange
(e.g., Dienesch and Liden 1986, Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995) – explicitly or im-
plicitly focus on explaining leadership effectiveness in terms of economic per-
formance and tend to neglect other social or environmental outcomes. As a
result, they consider leadership as a control-oriented tool that relies on reward
and punishment mechanisms. Second, those classic theories of leadership
focus on the leader–follower dyad, which might prove to be irrelevant in the
wider stakeholder context associated with social entrepreneurship. As a result,
a broader meaning might need to be attributed to those who depend on the
leader (i.e., the followers) to include a vast array of stakeholders (e.g., donors,
beneficiaries, volunteers, and government). Eisenbeiss (2012) advocates con-
sidering a ‘new’ leadership paradigm anchored in lateral and trust-based rela-
tionships. Therefore, although crucial for the success of social ventures,
entrepreneurs involved in the process of starting or managing social initiatives
52 S. Bacq et al.
might need to pay extra attention to the type of leadership they exert, and
this type might differ from what is usually preached in traditional, commer-
cial enterprises. For instance, based on Eisenbeiss (2012), one could argue
that the more a social entrepreneurship organization matures and its busi-
ness model proves to be successful, the more the social entrepreneur leading
the organization will display types of leadership that create a sense of pur-
pose (‘visionary leadership’), a sense of involvement (‘shared leadership’),
and self-transcendence motivation (‘value-based leadership’) for the
stakeholders.
As a second explanation, the intentions of social entrepreneurs and the in-
fluence of government subsidies were mentioned repeatedly. In the Belgo–
Dutch context, it is likely that a considerable part of social activities are orga-
nized as projects subsidized by the government and are, by definition, not

meant to last. Indeed, subsidies are often granted for a period of no longer
than three to four years, which corresponds to the definition of a young busi-
ness as used in the GEM survey (i.e., a business that is less than 3.5 years
old). Moreover, if social entrepreneurs are willing but unable (i.e., lack of en-
trepreneurial ability or effective leadership skills) to continue their operations
without drawing on public sources, they will not turn their efforts into estab-
lished activities. Whether social entrepreneurs do not have the intention or
are unable to turn their activities into lasting actions led one of our key
informants to conclude: ‘The Netherlands is a cemetery of unfinished
projects’.
Third, the low rate of established social business entrepreneurship could
also be explained by the fact that social entrepreneurship is perceived as a
relatively young phenomenon – even if it has been argued that throughout
history social entrepreneurs have always been around but were never recog-
nized as such (Nicholls 2006b, Alter 2007, Bornstein 2007). In addition, the
long tradition of private initiatives in both Belgium and The Netherlands
(Veldheer and Burger 1999) and the substantial nonprofit sectors in both
countries (Burger et al. 1999, Mertens et al. 1999) suggest that ‘activities,
organizations or initiatives that have a particularly social, environmental or
community objective’ are not particularly new.
These insights, along with the quantitative results, point in the same direc-
tion: social entrepreneurship organizations and initiatives are relatively young
and social entrepreneurship may be considered as an early-stage phenome-
non. Hence, we formulate the following propositions.
Proposition 1a: Social entrepreneurship organizations or initiatives are on aver-

age younger than their commercial counterparts and are mainly represented in
the pre-start-up or infancy stage of the entrepreneurial process.
Proposition 1b: The age of the social entrepreneurship organization or initiative

is positively related to the availability of entrepreneurial skills and is related to
the type of leadership.
Proposition 1c: The age of the social entrepreneurship organization or initiative
is negatively related to the involvement of government funding in the sector in
which it operates.
4.2. Results on Size

Figure 1 provides insights into the current number of people working in social
and commercial entrepreneurial activities. Here again, a distinction has been
made between early-stage and established activities.
As Figure 1 illustrates, about 6% and 10% of social early-stage entrepre-
neurs and social established entrepreneurs, respectively, have no people
working in their activity. Surprisingly, very many social established business
entrepreneurs have 20 or more people working in their organization, while

the majority of social early-stage entrepreneurs have between 1 and 19 people
working in their activities. In comparison, most commercial entrepreneurs
(whether involved in early-stage activities or running an established business)
employ either no people or 1 to 5 people. One possible explanation for the dif-
ference in the number of workers between social entrepreneurial activities and
commercial businesses could lie in the number of volunteers. Traditionally,
volunteers are well represented in nonprofit, charitable organizations. A
Dutch chain of fair-trade shops may serve as an illustration: one third of the
400 retail shops of the ‘Wereldwinkel’ employs a group of 40 volunteers for
each shop whereas a regular retail shop employs on average 7.5 (paid)
employees (Rijt-Veltman 2010). Table 2 provides details on the characteristics
of workers active in social entrepreneurship organizations or initiatives and
includes the number of volunteers.8
As can be seen from Table 2, the average number of people working in a so-
cial entrepreneurial activity equals 15 for early-stage activities and 44 for
Figure 1. Current number of people working in social and commercial entrepreneurial

activities, by phase, The Netherlands and Belgium pooled.
54 S. Bacq et al.
Table 2. Characteristics of workers in social activities, organizations, or initiatives, by phase,
The Netherlands and Belgium pooled
Social early-stage Social established

activities activities
Number of people working (average), of which: 15 44

Number of volunteers (average) 13 18
Number of part-time workers (average) 8 18
Expected number of people working in 5 years (average) 20 43

established activities. The number of volunteers working in the social activity,

organization or initiative also increases when the organization matures. The
same pattern can be observed for part-time workers. Interestingly, the share
of volunteers in the total number of workers is relatively higher for social ear-
ly-stage activities (13 out of 15) than for social established business activities
(18 out of 44). This might suggest that once the social business has become a
lasting activity, there are more opportunities for a paid job. Finally, the
expected number of people working in five-year’s time suggests that social
early-stage entrepreneurs expect their social activity to grow at an average an-
nual growth rate of 5.92%. This can be interpreted as ‘moderate growth
entrepreneurship’ (Morris 2011). However, and quite surprisingly, social-
established business entrepreneurs expect to have about the same number of
people working in their activities, i.e., an average null, or even negative, annu-
al growth rate. This further suggests that, in more advanced stages of the en-
trepreneurial process, social entrepreneurs do not really have high growth
ambitions, at least not in terms of employment growth. This finding may be
related to organizations’ lack of prospects in terms of social opportunities
and income-generating capacity or their hobby/voluntary characteristics.
Commercial entrepreneurs, however, have more growth ambitions as the
net expected job growth in a five-year period is 17 employees for commercial
early-stage activities and seven employees for commercial established enter-
prises, as follows from the GEM survey (not shown in Table 2).
Given the wide spread in the number of employees and volunteers across
social organizations, key informants were consulted. According to them, the
data capture at least two different types of organizations. On the one hand,
they suggested that there are, among social early-stage entrepreneurial activi-
ties, many publicly financed projects. Given the relatively short lead-time of
public funding, those projects are not meant to be large scale in terms of em-
ployment. On the other hand, established social entrepreneurship organiza-
tions could refer to the very large, established professional nonprofits or
NGOs. These two relatively extreme situations do not allow us to draw a
proposition regarding the size of social entrepreneurship organizations in
general and thus we restrict our proposition to:
Proposition 2: Social entrepreneurs are less ambitious in terms of employment
growth than commercial entrepreneurs.
4.3. Results on Sources of Funding
Respondents of the GEM survey were asked whether any of the revenue of
their activity, organization or initiative with a social, environmental or com-
munity objective originated from income, for example through the sale of
products or charging for services. If yes, the respondent was then asked what
percentage of total income came from the sale of products or services. Table 3
provides an overview of the sources of income of social activities, organiza-
tions, and initiatives by phase.
Table 3 shows that nearly two-thirds of the social established businesses
(100 37.8 ¼ 62.2%) do not derive their income from their activity, organiza-
tion, or initiative. In contrast, the majority (58.0%) of the social early-stage
entrepreneurially active generates at least some revenue from income. This

counter-intuitive result (one might have thought that, as the social entre-
preneurship organization or initiative matures, it relies more on sales than on
grants and subsidies) could depict the observation of key informants that the
GEM survey captures large, long-lasting, government-funded nonprofits as
social established businesses as was already suggested by our key informants.
However, of those social organizations and initiatives that indicated that they
did, indeed, derive some revenue from sales of products and services, it is evi-
dent that the established entrepreneurs depend less on other sources than
their early-stage counterparts (21% and 42%, respectively). Hence, in line
with previous studies, our data suggest that social entrepreneurship organiza-
tions or activities rely on a mix of funding sources. This leads to the following
proposition.
Proposition 3: The funding mix of social entrepreneurship organizations or ini-

tiatives is dominated by sources other than earned income from the sale of prod-
ucts and services.
4.4. Results on Innovativeness

In general, as suggested but not tested, social entrepreneurs are expected to
show and execute some degree of innovation in their activities. Table 4 dis-
plays the degree of innovation offered by the social entrepreneurs’ activities,
differentiating between early-stage and established activities.
Table 3. Sources of income of social activities, organizations, and initiatives by phase, The
Netherlands and Belgium pooled

Any revenue coming from income, for example, through 58.0 37.8
sales of products or charging for services? (% yes)
Percentage of total income that comes from the sale of 57.6 79.3
products or services?

56 S. Bacq et al.
Table 4. Degree of innovation of social activities, organizations, and initiatives, by phase, The
Netherlands and Belgium pooled, percentage of the adult population (18–64 years of age) in-
volved in social entrepreneurship who agree with the statement

Social activity offers new type of product or service (%) 37.4 24.3
Social activity offers new way of producing product or 38.0 23.0
service (%)
Social activity offers new way of promoting or 41.4 24.5
marketing product or service (%)
Social activity attends new or so far unattended market 42.1 23.9
niche of customer (%)
If social activity did not exist, the customers’ needs 48.4 47.1
would be served elsewhere in the market (%)
It follows from Table 49 that social entrepreneurs perceive their social busi-
nesses or activities as quite innovative. More precisely, the results underline
the innovativeness of social early-stage entrepreneurs relative to social estab-
lished business entrepreneurs. Social early-stage entrepreneurs not only per-
ceive themselves as relatively more innovative than social established ones in
terms of providing, producing, or promoting a new product/service, but also
in terms of entering a new or so far unattended market niche or customer. In
other words, irrespective of the type of innovativeness, social early-stage en-
trepreneurially active individuals are more positive about their innovativeness
compared with social established entrepreneurs. The same pattern holds for
commercial entrepreneurs: commercial established business entrepreneurs
are less positive about their innovativeness compared with their early-stage
counterparts (not shown in Table 4). This finding suggests that as (social) en-
trepreneurial activities mature, they become less innovative. Perhaps new
businesses or activities need to be innovative in order to survive in the market
while established activities are less driven by this imperative. Given the simi-
larities between social and commercial entrepreneurship with regard to inno-
vation, we do not formulate any specific proposition.
The next section discusses the propositions we have formulated as well as
the research opportunities they offer.
5. Discussion of Propositions and Future Research Opportunities

For the purpose of generating empirically driven propositions, we brought to-
gether insights from previous empirical investigations and complemented
them with insights from GEM 2009’s unique large-scale survey data on social
entrepreneurship and with insights from interviews with key informants in
both Belgium and The Netherlands. In cases of common patterns between
the extant literature and our results, or when a combination of the data and
Table 5. Generated propositions
1a Social entrepreneurship organizations or initiatives are on average younger than their
commercial counterparts and are mainly represented in the pre-start-up or infancy
stage of the entrepreneurial process.
1b The age of the social entrepreneurship organization or initiative is positively related to the
availability of entrepreneurial skills and is related to the type of the leadership.
1c The age of the social entrepreneurship organization or initiative is negatively related to
the involvement of government funding in the sector in which it operates.
2 Social entrepreneurs are less ambitious in terms of employment growth than commercial
entrepreneurs.
3 The funding mix of social entrepreneurship organizations or initiatives is dominated by
other sources than earned income from the sale of products and services.
the insights from the key informants gave the occasion to do so, we generated
propositions. Table 5 lists them.
When considering the propositions derived in this study and reading
Table 5, an image of social entrepreneurship organizations or initiatives
emerges that raises questions about the actual entrepreneurial behavior of
this group.
First, the socially entrepreneurially active share of the adult population
seems to have difficulties moving into more mature stages of the entrepre-
neurial process (Proposition 1a), which is further reflected in the age of the ac-
tivity (Proposition 1b) or, put differently, the survival of the social
organization or initiative. Furthermore, one could wonder whether the age of
the social organization reflects the presumed complexities of this type of activ-
ity, including multiple goals, as was suggested by Hoogendoorn and Van der
Zwan (2011), or whether this type of entrepreneurship appeals to a certain
type of individual, such as idealistic individuals who draw their legitimacy
from social and moral sources and who do not possess the required entrepre-
neurial skills and drive.
Second, it is worth noting the low growth ambitions of social entrepreneurs
in terms of job creation, in particular for established social entrepreneurs
(Proposition 2) compared with commercial entrepreneurs. It is considered a
stylized fact of small businesses that those that grow, even at a modest level,
are more likely to survive (Phillips and Kirchhoff 1989, Storey and Greene
2010). Whether or not this also holds for social entrepreneurship organiza-
tions is currently under researched but it seems plausible to assume that those
initiatives that are able to grow are more likely to generate higher levels of so-
cial wealth or social impact. Evidently, it remains unanswered whether social
entrepreneurs are indeed less ambitious than their commercial counterparts,
whether their prospects in terms of opportunities and income generating
make them more realistic and hence modest in their growth ambitions, or
whether employment growth is perceived as an inappropriate measure for the
ambition of social entrepreneurial ventures.
Third, an additional relevant item of interest for this discussion, and in par-
ticular for policy makers, is the role of subsidies versus revenue generation by
charging for products and services, and the subsequent survival prospects of
58 S. Bacq et al.
the social organization. Indeed, social entrepreneurship organizations’ fund-
ing mix is dominated by other sources than earned income from the sale of
products and services (Proposition 3). Sources of funding and sustainability
or viability of social organizations are recurrent topics in the social entre-
preneurship literature (Boschee and McClurg 2003, Sharir and Lerner 2006,
Weerawardena and Sullivan Mort 2006, Haugh 2009). Being dependent on
governments and single stakeholders, such as wealthy individuals, private
corporations and foundations, is associated with lower survival prospects
and implies a risk of failure or bankruptcy once funding stops. In addition, if
these particular sources of income (e.g., gifts, grants, bequests, and dona-
tions) are to be used for predefined purposes only, they will restrict autono-
mous strategic decision-making and will affect a social venture’s long-term
success and viability (Haugh 2009). The collective logic that seems to domi-
nate the discourse on social entrepreneurship is that business and entre-
preneurship are the way forward for social organizations (Parkinson and
Howorth 2008), including generating independent sources of earned income.
Whereas fewer subsidies and more earned income may increase the survival
prospects of social initiatives, it may also leave the most pressing social and
environmental needs unaddressed since social organizations purposely locate
their activities in areas where markets function poorly (Di Domenico et al.
2010) and with a limited potential to capture the value created (Mair and
Martı 2006). In all, the relationship between subsidies, earned income strate-
gies and performance in terms of impact and social wealth creation offers a
promising path for future research.
The next section discusses some limitations of this research and its instru-
ment validity, as well as the research opportunities it opens up to.
6. Context Specificity, Measurement Validity, and Limitations

This section consists of two subsections. The first subsection concerns the
context specificity and the measurement validity of the data and reflects some
additional insights from the key informants. The second subsection presents
this study’s limitations and expounds on the future research avenues it offers
for the field of social entrepreneurship.
6.1. Context Specificity and Measurement Validity

As stated in the Introduction, the methodology to measure entrepreneurship
as applied by the GEM was designed as a global measurement instrument
with the objective to capture the different perspectives that exist across
regions and countries. At the same time, it has been repeatedly suggested that
social entrepreneurship manifests itself differently in different socioeconomic
contexts (Nicholls 2006a, 2006b, Kerlin 2009, Mair 2010). This subsection
aims to address the specificity of the Belgo–Dutch context enriched with
additional insights from our local key informants with regard to the validity
of the data.
First, the context in which our results are to be interpreted needs explana-
tion. The Belgo–Dutch context on which this study is based is characterized
by, besides a high level of income and a good functioning market, a welfare
state regime that delegates a large proportion of public service delivery to pri-
vate and non-governmental organizations, financed by collective arrange-
ments (Burger et al. 1999, Mertens et al. 1999, Salamon et al. 2003). This
results in a highly developed nonprofit sector mainly in domains such as
health, education and social services. Even though public financial support is
increasingly under pressure, support for strategic development of the social
enterprise sector remains in the hands of public institutions. These socio-eco-
nomic-political characteristics differ from other regions in the world, such as
US, where social entrepreneurship is characterized by the influence of the
market, reflecting a long tradition of market reliance (Mair and Martı 2009,
Bacq and Janssen 2011). The strong logic of subsidization was one of the
items that was repeatedly put forward by our key informants and that is typi-
cal to the Belgo–Dutch context. This is directly reflected in Proposition 1c
that suggests a negative relationship between the age of a social entrepreneur-
ship organization or initiative and government funding, and in Proposition 3
that concerns the funding sources of social initiatives. Bearing the suggestions
of Mair (2010), Kerlin (2009), and Nicholls (2006a, 2006b) in mind – that the
occurrence and type of social entrepreneurship manifests itself differently in
different contexts – requires capturing contextual considerations in our
propositions. However, how to meaningfully distinguish between different
contexts is still an under explored issue in the literature. From an institu-
tional perspective, a first distinction could be made between an institution-
al voids perspective (i.e., a context characterized by the absence of
property rights, well-functioning markets, active governments, among
others) (Mair and Martı 2009, Dacin et al. 2010) and an institutional sup-
port perspective (i.e., a context characterized by the presence of favorable
institutions). A more fine-grained approach by Mair (2010) suggests that
the occurrence and types of social entrepreneurship may well vary across
different types of capitalism (Hall and Soskice 2001, Amable 2003, Jackson
and Deeg 2008). Distinct institutional configurations generate a particular
systemic ‘logic’ of economic action of influence on social entrepreneurial
activity, including the type of needs or opportunities these entrepreneurs
address. In this line of reasoning, the Belgo–Dutch context reflects cooper-
ative economies in which the role of the government is considered domi-
nant in the redistribution of wealth and the care of social needs. Further
exploration of the different typologies of contexts including the ‘varieties
of capitalism’ seems a fruitful path for future research at the national or
regional level and opens up new research opportunities to understand the
mechanisms at play within a given context.
Next to the context in which our results need to be interpreted, issues of
measurement and formulation within this context are not to be ignored. This
is particularly critical given the background of definitional ambiguity and the
relative newness of large-scale, quantitative data collection in the field of so-
cial entrepreneurship. Although the GEM 2009 questionnaire was based on
60 S. Bacq et al.
earlier versions used in UK and US (Lepoutre et al. 2011), the initial question
used by the GEM consortium to identify social entrepreneurs underlines the
broad perspective of the concept and raises questions about what it is that
this survey measures in a particular context. Mair (2010) puts it eloquently by
stating that social entrepreneurship not only means different things to differ-
ent people but also different things to different people in different locations.
To be able to obtain a better, overall understanding of the small group of
respondents in the Belgo–Dutch context who answered positively to the defin-
ing question ‘Are you, alone or with others, currently trying to start or cur-
rently owning and managing any kind of activity, organization or initiative
that has a particularly social, environmental or community objective? This
might include providing services or training to socially deprived or disabled
persons, using profits for socially oriented purposes, organizing self-help

groups for community action, etc.’, we asked our key informants to reflect on
this question from the perspective of the group they represent. That is to say,
we gathered key informants’ perceptions of how the respondents may have
interpreted the question. Two main insights arose, including a mixture of pro-
fessional language used in the defining question and a certain resistance to so-
cial entrepreneurship.
First, it followed from the interviews that the coexistence of different per-
spectives of social entrepreneurship reflects a mixture of professional lan-
guage. Social entrepreneurship comes into existence at the intersection of
state, market, and civil society (Nicholls 2006a, 2006b, Kerlin 2009) and
hence can be characterized as a mixture of related but different phenomena,
each with its own logic of exchange, institutions associated with it, types of
goods and services, and their own professional language.10 A mixture of the
latter is reflected in the question used in the GEM 2009 survey. It was sug-
gested by the key informants that, at least in Belgium and The Netherlands,
the professional language from one sector does not resonate with the lan-
guage of another sector. In particular, it was indicated that terms used in the
first part of the question, such as ‘owning and managing’, strongly refer to
business logic. On the other hand, the examples used in the second part of the
question (e.g., ‘providing services or training to socially deprived or disabled
persons, using profits for socially oriented purposes, organizing self-help
groups for community action’) were perceived as being associated with the
nonprofit sector, which is heavily government-subsidized in those two coun-
tries. As a result, the key informants who shared this understanding of the
question stated that respondents from the nonprofit sector would answer neg-
atively to this question because they do not recognize themselves in the busi-
ness language. The same holds for more business-oriented respondents who
may not identify with the nonprofit rhetoric. Even if we might want to label
them as social entrepreneurs, we will not capture them with this question be-
cause they cannot identify their activities with the examples used at the end of
the question that are more related to traditionally subsidized nonprofit initia-
tives. Hence, key informants argued that only a very small group of respond-
ents is likely to feel comfortable with the language used in the question and
therefore identify themselves as ‘social entrepreneurs’.
Second, our interviewees indicated a certain resistance to social entre-
preneurship. According to some of the Dutch interviewees, given the omni-
presence of the government in the provision of social services (in practice
outsourced to private nonprofits), the Dutch social sector is perceived as over
organized and, as long as there is no lack of resources (i.e., subsidies), entre-
prendre in the social sector is not a natural thing to do. Belgian key inform-
ants also put forward this very strong logic of subsidization. One of them
explained the low level of social entrepreneurial activity by the minor pres-
ence of financing models in Belgium and that one has to know rich families to
leverage funds. Hence, initiatives that blur the boundaries between private
and public sectors may cause a certain resistance to social entrepreneurship
and may influence the adoption of social entrepreneurship in the Belgo–
Dutch context.
Both observations (i.e., mix of professional language and a certain resis-
tance to social entrepreneurship) may explain the relatively low rate of social
entrepreneurial activity found in Belgium and The Netherlands compared
with other countries. What is even more interesting to be learned from these
observations, with the Belgo–Dutch context being illustrative, is that stretch-
ing the concept of social entrepreneurship to a worldwide comparison may
provide us with a false understanding of differences in degree of the phenome-
non as long as we do not dispose of a substantive understanding of local con-
tingencies including language, logics, and values. So, even when a call for
more quantitative research is a valid one, data do not speak for themselves
and require conceptual refinement and hence a detailed understanding of dif-
ferences in kind of social entrepreneurial activities emerging from different
contexts.
6.2. Limitations
A consequence of the relatively limited number of social entrepreneurs in our
dataset restricts us in the methodological options available to explore the
data. For instance, it was not possible to split our sample into different cate-
gories of social entrepreneurs, such as those who start a new venture and
those who do not, or distinctions based on legal structure (for-profit and non-
profit), type of industry, size or growth ambition. On the contrary, we chose
to explore the data by focusing on different organizational characteristics
and, for this purpose, we limited our analyses to the use of descriptive statis-
tics. Applying a multivariate setting that allows investigating characteristics
in relation to each other is a valuable next step.
Our research suggests above all that (large-scale) data on social entrepre-
neurial activity cannot be interpreted regardless of their context. As such, our
findings could be addressed either as unique characteristics and dynamics of
social entrepreneurship in its proper context or as issues of measurement and
formulation. Based on our interviews with the field’s key informants, we have
the impression that the initial question intended to identify the social entre-
preneurs does not measure the prevalence of ‘social entrepreneurship’ but
rather the active involvement or active leadership in addressing social,
62 S. Bacq et al.
environmental or community needs. Whether this is typical for the Belgo–
Dutch context or applies to a broader range of countries remains a subject
for future research.
7. Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to generate empirically driven propositions re-
lating to a phenomenon that has increasingly attracted researchers’ attention
for almost two decades: social entrepreneurship. This objective was also
sketched in response to the currently limited knowledge of the distinguishing
features of social entrepreneurship organizations based on quantitative stud-
ies. Therefore, this study adopted a quantitative, exploratory and proposi-

tion-generating approach to key questions about social entrepreneurship
organizations or initiatives and contrasted them with our understanding of
commercial entrepreneurs. We applied an inductive approach using different
sources of information: extant empirical literature, data from the GEM 2009
survey on social entrepreneurship for Belgium and The Netherlands, and
qualitative views from in-depth interviews with key informants. Five proposi-
tions were generated. Although these propositions are still to be thoroughly
tested, they seem to question the taken-for-granted innovative and ambitious
picture of social entrepreneurship that has been widely spread in the media
and successful cases of social entrepreneurs as a subject of scholarly endeav-
ors. That is, social entrepreneurship’s entrepreneurial core might not be as
strong as expected and the young age of such initiatives might be due to a cer-
tain lack of entrepreneurial skills and ambition – or to a high dependence on
government subsidies. Next to these propositions, additional insights gained
from interviews with local experts demonstrated that analyses based on newly
generated quantitative data on a poorly understood concept require substan-
tive understanding of local contingencies. Hence, the same analyses replicated
in different types of contexts are likely to yield different results or may yield
somehow comparable results but probably for different reasons.
Overall, this study not only extends our current knowledge of the distin-
guishing organizational features of social entrepreneurship, but our mix-
methods approach also generated empirically grounded propositions that
hold promise in helping this particular field to evolve beyond descriptive pur-
poses toward more predictive research with a critical note on measurement
applicability and validity throughout different contexts.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our appreciation to all key informants for their co-
operation and for sharing their opinions and expertise with us. In addition,
our thanks go to Jolanda Hessels, Frank Janssen, Jan Lepoutre, Enrico
Pennings, Andre van Stel, Roy Thurik, and Sander Wennekers for their
constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper, which were presented
at the Seventh Annual Satter Conference on Social Entrepreneurship,
November 2010, New York, USA, and at the 24th RENT Conference,
November 2010, Maastricht, The Netherlands. The paper was written with
financial support from the Intercollegiate Center for Management Science,
Erasmus School of Economics, and the research program SCALES (www.
entrepreneurship-sme.eu) carried out by Panteia/EIM and financed by the
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Notes
1. See also www.gemconsortium.org.
2. ‘Nascent social entrepreneurship,’ ‘young social business entrepreneurship,’ and ‘social established
entrepreneurship’ are expressions borrowed from the GEM terminology. See Section 3.1 on ‘Data
Sources and Definitions’ for an explanation of their meaning.

3. Different schools of thought have different opinions on the relationship between earned income and
mission. See Bacq and Janssen (2011), Defourny and Nyssens (2010), and Hoogendoorn et al. (2010)
for an overview of different schools of thought and their distinguishing features.
4. In contrast to the aggregate level data that are available for all the 49 participating countries, the
microlevel data are available only for the national team of the country concerned; data from the other
participating countries are not freely available. Since this study is the result of cooperation between the
Belgian and the Dutch teams, we were able to use the data relating to these two countries.
5. For more details on the methodology of measuring social entrepreneurial activity within the GEM, see
Terjesen et al. (2012).
6. We chose to consider this category of respondents as social entrepreneurs. They are thus not counted
as commercial entrepreneurs.
7. All interviews were recorded and transcribed – their average length was 1 hour.
8. Data on the number of volunteers and part-time workers are not available for commercial
entrepreneurs.
9. These specific measures for innovation are available only for social entrepreneurs, not for commercial
entrepreneurs.
10. The intermediate space at the crossroad of market, state and civil society has been claimed to represent:
associations (Streeck and Schmitter 1985), third sector (Pestoff 1992, Evers and Laville 2004), social
economy that incorporates social enterprises (Nyssens 2006, Defourny and Nyssens 2009), social ven-
tures (Kievit et al. 2008), and social entrepreneurship (Nicholls 2006a, 2006b).
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Appendix
Table A.1. List of key informants and their involvement in social entrepreneurship
Profession Involvement in social entrepreneurship Interview date
Belgium
Philippson Foundation Belgian foundation aiming to stimulate June 15, 2010
sustainable human development in Central
and Western Africa through the support of
African social enterprises
Ashoka representative in Belgian branch of the global organization that June 16, 2010
Belgium invests in innovative social entrepreneurs
Researcher in CSR at PhD dissertation on ‘Toward the stakeholder June 16, 2010
Louvain School of company: Essays on the role of
Management organizational culture, interaction, and
change in the pursuit of corporate social
responsibility’
Prof. in economics at Researcher in social economy for numerous June 17, 2010
Universite Catholique de years
Louvain / Founder of the
EMES network
Project manager at SAW-B SAW-B supports the development of an June 18, 2010
(Walloon and Brussels economy based on the respect of human and
Alternatives Solidarity) environmental values
Post-doctoral researcher at PhD dissertation on ‘Explaining June 24, 2010
Oxford University Organizational Diversity in Fair Trade
Social Enterprises’
Coordinator of the 90% of CREDAL’s clients are nonprofit July 6, 2010
Advising Cell of organizations, the remaining are
CREDAL (‘Solidarity cooperatives
money bank’)
The Netherlands
Researcher and account Researcher and account manager on studies of June 15, 2010
manager for CSR in and advice on environmental policy, effects
SME at EIM Business of environmental legislation, socially
and Policy Research responsible enterprising, and sustainable
consumption
Prof. of Volunteering, Civil Prof. since 2003 with research focus on June 25, 2010
Society and Businesses strategic philanthropy, volunteer/nonprofit
and of Strategic management, corporate community
Philanthropy at Erasmus involvement, and business-society
University, The partnerships
Netherlands
Ass. Prof. at the Research focus on urban regeneration and June 29, 2010
Department of Public housing, government - civil society
Administration and relationships and innovations in governance
Political Science,
Nijmegen University,
The Netherlands/EMES
representative
Director SSO (Foundation Entrepreneur in the creative industry and June 29, 2010
for social entrepreneurs) director at ‘Stichting Sociaal
Ondernemerschap’
(continued )
68 S. Bacq et al.
Table A.1. (Continued)
Profession Involvement in social entrepreneurship Interview date
Director Franssen and Author of the book ‘Sociaal Ondernemen in July 1, 2010
Scholten consultancy Nederland’ (Social Entrepreneurship in The
Netherlands) and one of the founders of
SROI method
Consultant Ashoka Dutch branch of the global organization that July 1, 2010
Netherlands invests in innovative social entrepreneurs
Chairman Social Venture Chairman of a support network for July 1, 2010
Network Netherlands entrepreneurs in the field of Social
Responsibility and Sustainable
Development
Consultant GreenWish and As a consultant at GreenWish, she supports July 2, 2010

PhD Social initiators and entrepreneurs who start social
Entrepreneurship and the initiatives and promotes this type of
Business Sector (UVA) initiatives at public authorities, and private
institutions

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Journal of Social Entrepreneurship

A Quantitative Comparison of Social

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2012.758653

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A Quantitative Comparison of Social and

SOPHIE BACQa, CHANTAL HARTOGb &

KEY WORDS: Social entrepreneurship, commercial entrepreneurship, organizational features,

*Corresponding author. Email: s.bacq@neu.edu

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

that influence successful social enterprise initiatives.

2. Literature: Social Entrepreneurship and Organizational Characteristics

2.1. Social Entrepreneurship

2.3. Size of the Social Entrepreneurship Organization or Initiative

2.4. Earned Income

Two approaches to social organizations’ funding predominate at the concep-

2.5. Innovativeness of the Social Entrepreneurship Organization or Initiative

3. Data and Methodology

3.1. Data Sources and Definitions

preneurship organizations’ distinguishing characteristics. More specifically,

3.2. Research Methodology

4.1. Results on Age

Table 1. Involvement in social and commercial entrepreneurship, by phase, The Netherlands

Phase in the Young Total Established

Social 0.86 0.69 1.52 0.99

Source: GEM Adult Population Survey 2009.

ship skills and entrepreneurial ability contributes negatively to the survival

nized as projects subsidized by the government and are, by definition, not

Proposition 1a: Social entrepreneurship organizations or initiatives are on aver-

Proposition 1b: The age of the social entrepreneurship organization or initiative

4.2. Results on Size

entrepreneurs have 20 or more people working in their organization, while

Figure 1. Current number of people working in social and commercial entrepreneurial

Social early-stage Social established

Number of people working (average), of which: 15 44

Source: GEM Adult Population Survey 2009.

established activities. The number of volunteers working in the social activity,

entrepreneurially active generates at least some revenue from income. This

Proposition 3: The funding mix of social entrepreneurship organizations or ini-

4.4. Results on Innovativeness

Social early-stage Social established

Source: GEM Adult Population Survey 2009.

Social early-stage Social established

Source: GEM Adult Population Survey 2009.

5. Discussion of Propositions and Future Research Opportunities

6. Context Specificity, Measurement Validity, and Limitations

6.1. Context Specificity and Measurement Validity

persons, using profits for socially oriented purposes, organizing self-help

ies. Therefore, this study adopted a quantitative, exploratory and proposi-

Sources and Definitions’ for an explanation of their meaning.

nomics, published online 23 November 2011, DOI 10.1007/s11187-011-9398-4.

Profession Involvement in social entrepreneurship Interview date

Profession Involvement in social entrepreneurship Interview date

Consultant GreenWish and As a consultant at GreenWish, she supports July 2, 2010

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