Blending Conflicting Logics by Social Entrepreneurs – The Role of Entrepreneurial Mindset

Social entrepreneurs, regardless the geographical context or legal form of their enterprises blend commercial market logic and social good logic. We argue that the concept entrepreneurial mindset plays a key role in understanding how blending conflicting logics management activities of social entrepreneurs occurs. This paper aims to identify the role of particular entrepreneurial mindset attributes in enabling social entrepreneurs to successfully act simultaneously in social and market contexts. Through pursuing interpretative phenomenological research with seven social entrepreneurs from five different countries, we have identified three different schemes of blending social and commercial logics. Our findings have also identified the intensity of particular EM attributes among the three groups of entrepreneurs. The main contribution of this paper in bringing together two entrepreneurship streams of research to advance our understanding on how social entrepreneurs blend competing institutional logics.