Title: Social e-entrepreneurship and technological innovations: the role of online communities, mobile communication and social networks

Authors: Vanessa Ratten

Addresses: Department of Management, La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University, Bundoora 3086, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract: Social entrepreneurship has been a growing area of interest for businesses that want to include a not-for-profit perspective in addition to their profit orientation as part of their overall strategy. The increasing integration of technology within a business's strategy has lead to the development of social electronic enterprises (e-enterprises), which involve a business having a social purpose in the online environment. Social e-enterprises enable the use of technological innovations as a way for business to creatively solve social issues. The purpose of this paper is to explore how social e-enterprises are being used in order to facilitate better usage of mobile communication and online communities. This is helped by a focus on the opportunity recognition of social entrepreneurship made possible by technological innovations that have linked the global business environment. As more businesses utilise emerging technology, this has shaped the way that social e-enterprises are functioning. This paper will review the nascent literature on social entrepreneurship with a focus on how the e-entrepreneurship has emerged. Suggestions for practitioners involved in shaping social e-enterprises are stated with recommendations for future research.

Keywords: social enterprise; social entrepreneurship; social innovation; e-entrepreneurship; e-enterprises; electronic enterprises; technology innovation; social networks; not-for-profit; online communities; technology entrepreneurship; technoentrepreneurship; technopreneurship; electronic entrepreneurship; mobile communications; virtual communities; web based communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEI.2013.059322

International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2013 Vol.2 No.5, pp.476 - 483

Received: 11 Jul 2013
Accepted: 19 Jul 2013
Published online: 29 Apr 2014 *

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