ABSTRACT
We launched this study to explore what is unique, different, interesting, and special about a growing class of entrepreneurs and their companies that we designated as values-centered. Most of the world calls them social entrepreneurs but we chose a different appellation because we wanted to distinguish clearly between social entrepreneurs who found for-profit enterprises from those who build not-for-profit enterprises. We identified 46 such entrepreneurial firms that we felt met our rather loose criteria and also were engaging or interesting. We studied them in depth, some in more depth than others, and distilled ten commonalities that we called principles or guidelines. Not all of our firms exhibited all of these principles but the majority of the firms displayed the majority of them. Our thought was that these guidelines could provide a helpful framework for budding values-centered entrepreneurs.
