Role of Social Entrepreneurship in the Economic Development at Community Level – A Case Study of Social Entrepreneurship in the District of Kachchh, Gujarat, India

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship has come to be synonymous with the individual visionary - the risk taker who goes against the tide to start a new organization to create dramatic social change. This change can lead to social and economic development of the society. Then what is the role of social entrepreneurship in economic development at the community level? At a minimum the answer should be able to explain the role of social entrepreneurs in the structural transformation of communities from low income, primary-sector based communities into high-income service and technology based communities of societies. More broadly though, it should also be able to explain the role of social entrepreneurs in the opposite pole of stagnating development (including conflict) and in high innovation-driven growth of the community of the society. Thus it can be concluded that social entrepreneurship identify the problems in the society, trace the root causes of the problem and endeavor to solve them. Through this approach, they try to apply their entrepreneurial abilities to bring about the change in the society and change their economic condition. Their efforts lead to the social as well as the economic development of the society. This paper of ours tries to study the social entrepreneurship and its role in the economic development at the community level in the four parts as - the theoretical concept of social entrepreneurship in the first part, second part discusses the characteristic of social entrepreneurs, the third part discusses the study of six successful social entrepreneur in the district of Kachchh, Gujarat and the last part discusses the impact of social entrepreneurship on the social, political and economic context of poor and marginal people at the community level in the district of kachhchh. This study will discuss in detail analysis of the factors which develop social entrepreneurship. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for the practice of social entrepreneurship, for further research, and for the continued development of support technologies and institutions that will encourage future social entrepreneurship and its role in economic development.