ABSTRACT
In the context of increasing public demand for high-quality and accessible healthcare, and predictions of unmanageable costs in healthcare provision, social entrepreneurship holds the promise of making a cost-effective social impact in healthcare. Although research in the field of healthcare entrepreneurship has rapidly increased, the process of social entrepreneurial action is poorly understood. This chapter contributes to our understanding of the emergence of individual’s social entrepreneurial action in healthcare by conducting an exploratory study of the antecedents of social entrepreneurial action by Ashoka Fellows active in the healthcare sector. Adopting a qualitative biographical approach, we used Gioia’s two-step methodology to analyze the available online profiles of 57 Ashoka Fellows. Our findings reveal 14 antecedents that inform four interlinked aggregate dimensions of socially entrepreneurial antecedents. Our study suggests the dimensions of multi-disciplinarity, exposure, connectedness, and pro-social orientation are the core antecedents for social entrepreneurial pathways in healthcare. While our study focuses only on the profiles of highly successful social entrepreneurs in general, we argue that our research provides novel insights on the emergence of social entrepreneurial action in healthcare.
