Social Entrepreneurship as a Form of Institutional Entrepreneurship

Bureaucracy as a form of structuring and working of current organizations may be seen as the result of a set of circumstances. For Weberians, bureaucracy is the consequence of the principles of protestant values applied to the market. For institutionalists, bureaucracy is the outcome of the replication of practices in organizations, that is, bureaucracy is due to isomorphism among organizations. Following the institutional approach, organizations act by imitation. This imitation provides a certain way to compete and work necessary to survival, meaning that this imitation gives stability and equilibrium to the context in which organizations operate. Nevertheless, this equilibrium may not be fair for everybody. Social entrepreneurs can be seen as figures that try to break with the unjust equilibrium provoked by isomorphism. That is why the desire to shift from one equilibrium situation to another categorizes social entrepreneurs as institutional entrepreneurs.