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With current social, environmental and economic challenges, there is an increasing need to encourage more sustainable business models, which include social entrepreneurship, in the education of our future leaders and entrepreneurs. This has resulted in significant research and practice towards improving students' social entrepreneurial intention with higher education programmes. We used survey data collected from 220 university students in Brazil. These students participated in the Enactus programme, which exposed them to social entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial education. Our findings highlight the importance of experience-based programmes in forming empathy, essential to self-efficacy development, and in improving the ability to identify social opportunities, which together are indispensable for developing social entrepreneurial intentions. This paper contributes to social entrepreneurship education literature by emphasising the need to integrate experience-based opportunities into higher education programmes. It confirms that social entrepreneurial actions are contextually driven and should be addressed and developed closer to the needs. This results in empathic individuals who can see opportunities others do not see and become social entrepreneurs. In regard to public policy support and the encouragement of social entrepreneurship models, our findings emphasise the need to help universities and encourage experiential programmes to develop students. In this way, universities which develop social entrepreneurship education programmes have the opportunity to act as agents of change, developing human capital to address the social/environmental challenges and create a fairer society.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems have been explored widely in entrepreneurship, management and social sciences literature. The Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship (KSTE) aims to uncover the effects of information on start‐ups co‐located in diverse locations, such as urban areas, science and technology parks, incubators, and accelerator programs. Extant research has focused on how entrepreneurs launch start‐ups and develop patents over a 5–10 years timespan from a regional perspective. However, studies into the development processes of start‐ups and the creation of entrepreneurial ecosystems in physical and virtual environments in high‐tech start‐ups, are limited. As a result, this paper aims to identify the development processes undertaken by high‐tech entrepreneurs at the individual level and evaluate the absorption and implementation of knowledge in physical and virtual clusters within entrepreneurial ecosystems. A multiple case study of 32 start‐ups that have attended incubator and accelerator programs in London, United Kingdom, is presented. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Founders of start‐ups to propose the Model of Knowledge Spillovers and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. The themes identified during interviews highlight the mechanisms employed by start‐ups to capture tacit and explicit knowledge spillovers. Theoretically, the findings of this study contribute to the KSTE by questioning the flexibility of entrepreneurs to access knowledge without the limitation of geographical proximity to sources of knowledge. Practically, our findings provide entrepreneurs with proven mechanisms required to capture tacit knowledge spillovers within entrepreneurial ecosystems and use virtual platforms to obtain explicit knowledge spillovers towards product innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how social enterprises actively engage with their stakeholders to legitimize their hybrid position in addressing both social and businesses audience. This is particularly important in their effort to capturing stability (expectation to 'fit in') within an emerging field and at the same time to address change and growth (expectation to 'stand out') with their limited resources, in order to be profitable enterprises, while creating social value. We analyze in-depth interviews with senior members of 21 UK-based social enterprises and we find that for many SEs involved in legitimization exercise through the supportive system, collective system and stakeholders' impression. By outlining the integrated framework on stakeholder engagement for hybrid legitimacy, we found that (i) legitimization exercise through collective sharing of SE identity help to build SE image and legitimize SE socially driven mission, while (ii) legitimization through supportive system (resources and business advantage) help building credibility by demonstrating SE capability to grow economically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of the social enterprises (SE) and social entrepreneurship (SEship) literature that has been published in international journals from 1991 to 2010, determining the intellectual structure of both fields and their maturity as academic fields of study. Design/methodology/approach – Using a quantitative methodology for literature study, named bibliometric analysis, relevant papers were obtained from three important international databases, and SE and SEship journals. An initial number of 1,343 records were identified and, after applying various filters, a total of 286 papers were studied for bibliometric indicators and epistemological orientation. Findings – The study identified a significant increase in the scholarly investigation of SE and SEship in recent years, together with greater collaboration and international research. It was demonstrated that some countries are dominating the SE and SEship research area, such as the UK and the USA, whereas institutional and individual research output is spread more equally. Currently, no author or institution dominates the SE and SEship literature. The epistemological orientation suggests that the published literature is largely of a theoretical and descriptive nature in both fields, with only a small number of predictive papers. Originality/value – This paper provides important contributions. First, it presents an intellectual structure of SE and SEship as a discipline. Second, it determines the current maturity of the field based on its epistemological orientation, concluding that SE and SEship are maturing, with theory development followed by empirical testing and validation generating an increase in consensus on the boundaries of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]