Exploring the terrain of social entrepreneurship: new directions, paths less travelled

The field of social entrepreneurship (SE) is reaching maturity (Sassmannshausen and Volkmann 2018). However, there remain numerous new directions and paths less travelled for exploring the varied and complex SE terrain. This book draws together sixteen chapter contributions from developing paths of the SE field, to sign-post directions ahead. In this chapter we integrate and build on these rich insights, paving the way for a future research agenda to advance the maturing SE field. While some scholars suggest that mainstream entrepreneurship theories are suffi-cient to explain SE (Dacin et al. 2010), the field has been enriched by the application of different disciplinary approaches including management, public administration, economics, sociology, public health, and development studies. Up to this point methods have been predominately qualitative, arguably reflecting what a decade ago was characterised as a ‘pre-paradigmatic’ stage of field development (Nicholls 2010a), ranging from macro-studies of policy ecosystems to ethnographies. Economic theories have sought to SE while realist evaluations al. 2017) and systematic reviews 2018; Roy 2014) have been used to understand the impact of SE. Signs are emerging that scholars (and governments) are beginning to amass the datasets necessary for large-scale quantitative analysis While many authors use the terms social innovation, entrepreneurship and enterprise almost interchangeably, other scholars have focused on differentiating between them