Guest Editorial: Understanding Social Entrepreneurship: Let's Take a Closer Look at the Man Looking in the Mirror

The late pop star Michael Jackson made popular a song titled Man in the Mirror. This song describes an individual becoming aware of societal problems and, after looking at himself in the mirror, he makes a commitment to make the world a better place. This song reminds me of many social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship (i.e., innovative social value creating activity) does not happen without entrepreneurs (i.e., individuals or groups of individuals). In this editorial, I hope to draw your attention to the role of individuals in social entrepreneurship and the need to empirically and theoretically examine the individuals at the heart of social entrepreneurship.Social entrepreneurship is growing more prevalent in society. Further, as evidenced by this special issue and other published research, attention being paid to social entrepreneurship is also increasing. However, there still appears to be much we can learn about social entrepreneurship. Austin, Stevenson and Wei-Skillern (2006) identified the key distinctions between social and commercial entrepreneurship as: 1) differing views of market failure; 2) mobilize resources and 4) differing ways of measuring performance. At the individuals or groups of individuals, we should gain a better understanding of social entrepreneurship.Previous research on the role of the individual entrepreneurial processes identified the psychological characteristics, individual characteristics, and cognitions of individuals as influences (Shook, Priem and McGee, 2003). As we look at the key distinctions of social entrepreneurship vis-a-vis commercial entrepreneurship from the viewpoint of the individual, it seems that building on the past research that identified these aspects of the individuals in commercial entrepreneurship might be a good place to start the investigation of the roles individuals play in social entrepreneurship.The first two distinctions (i.e., differing views of market failure and fundamental difference in organization mission) noted by Austin et al. (2006) may be the most directly related to existing entrepreneurship research on the role of the individual. With regard to differing views of market failure, why do some individuals see market failure as a threat for commercial entrepreneur- ship but an opportunity for social entrepreneurship? With regard to differing missions, why do some individuals find it worthwhile to create value for the public good, while others find it worthwhile to only create private gain? …