Social entrepreneurship and the common good

Abstract

The common good refers to contextual conditions that contribute to human wellbeing and flourishing, such as prosperous communities and environmental sustainability. In this chapter we consider how entrepreneurship impacts society by investigating the generalised outcomes of social entrepreneurship on the common good. From a qualitative study of ten large and profitable social enterprises in the United Kingdom, we theorize how social entrepreneurship contributes to the common good in the short and long term. We also conjecture how some commercial practices undermine the common good and further, explain how the common good performs as a conceptual anchor for social entrepreneurship.