Harnessing Knowledge for Innovation in Social Enterprises: An Intellectual Capital Perspective

Social enterprises are not purely commercial and yet, they are not purely philanthropic (Borzaga & Defourny, 2001; Dees, 1998). They “enact hybrid nonprofit and for-profit activities” (Dart, 2004: 415) all “under one roof” (Fowler, 2000: 645). Social enterprises accomplish their social missions through the development of innovative ventures or by reorganizing existing activities to improve operational efficiency (Pomerantz, 2003; Weerawardena & Sullivan-Mort, 2006; Zappala, 2001). Thus they represent a step forward of the concept of traditional nonprofit organizations in achieving social needs (Manfredi, 2005). Indeed, social enterprises often challenge the status quo and our conventional thinking about what is feasible to alleviate social problems and to improve general public well being (Seelos & Mair, 2005). Although social enterprises involve adopting innovative business approaches for dealing with complex social problems, their primary objective is to create social value for the community that they serve for (Pomerantz, 2003; Thompson & Doherty, 2006). Economic value creation through commercial revenues and business activities is ABStrAct