ABSTRACT
This chapter defines three concepts strongly related to social entrepreneurship – social change, social impact, and social innovation – and shows how they intersect and diverge. Then it briefly describes a series of activities and organisational forms that are sometimes conflated with social entrepreneurship: traditional entrepreneurship, charities, social movements, and other forms of social or sustainable business, such as Fair Trade Organisations, B Corps, and Corporate Social Responsibility. This helps to highlight which social entrepreneurship departs from other existing activities with which it partially overlaps. Finally, the chapter starts to reflect on the roles that social entrepreneurship plays in society thanks to its unique characteristics.
