A marriage made in heaven? An exploratory study of the relations between venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship

摘要

Separately, both venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship have attracted academic interests during the past few decades. Scholars in both fields suggest that there is a missing link between venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship, which has a great potential to better addressing imperative social problems. Based on the policy innovation of government-sponsored venture philanthropy in China, this study shows how the combination of venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship activates a social catalyst model, through which social entrepreneurs creatively mobilize the diverse resources from government, market and the third sector to provide social service. The powerful combination of venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship helps social entrepreneurs to develop organizational infrastructure, spurs innovative and sustainable solutions for social problems and ameliorates resource efficiency by facilitating collaborations between different. This study concludes with a discussion of the impact of this emerging approach of social service provision and provides suggestions for further research and practice.