ABSTRACT
Context is important in understanding entrepreneurship.1 It determines when, how, and why entrepreneurship happens; it can be an asset or a liability that shapes entrepreneurship; but, equally, entrepreneurship may influence context, too.2 Entrepreneurs can bring about social change by being engaged and working with the community in which they are embedded.3 Viewed from this angle, entrepreneurship could be construed as a socially embedded process.4 The social problems prevailing in a particular country may influence the likelihood of creating social ventures to address them. For example, Safeena Husain created Educate Girls (www.educategirls.in) in 2007 to address the issue of girls’ education in rural India, which is a significant problem there and in other developing and emerging areas. Such a venture would not be created in the United States or Western Europe, where girls’ education is not an endemic social problem.
