Social Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice

Ryszard Praszkier · Andrzej Nowak

Oct 2011 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

Social Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice is about the creative ways in which social entrepreneurs solve pressing and insurmountable social problems. Theories of social change are presented to help demystify the 'magic' of making an immense, yet durable and irreversible, social impact. Utilizing case studies drawn from various fields and all over the world, the authors document how social entrepreneurs foster bottom-up change that empowers people and societies. They also review the specific personality traits of social entrepreneurs and introduce the new kind of leadership they represent. This book will be valuable to undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students, while remaining accessible to non-academic readers thanks to its clear language, illustrative case studies and guidelines on how to become a successful social entrepreneur.

About the author

Ryszard Praszkier, Ph.D., is a researcher at the University of Warsaw Complex Systems Research Center. His main field of interest involves the mechanisms of profound peaceful transitions, including social-change processes facilitated by social entrepreneurs, with a special focus on the role and properties of social networks supporting durable social change. Dr Praszkier has authored several academic publications regarding how social entrepreneurs find innovative ways to approach intractable conflicts. For more than 15 years, he has worked for Ashoka, Innovators for the Public, an international association that promotes social entrepreneurship in more than 70 countries.

Andrzej Nowak, Ph.D., is a professor and lecturer at the Florida Atlantic University, University of Warsaw (where he is the co-founder of the Institute for Social Studies and a founding director of the Complex Systems Research Center), Columbia University in New York and the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities (where he is the co-founder of the Institute of Social Psychology of Internet and Communication). Dr Nowak has written and contributed to a number of foundational theoretical books, monographs and articles in the fields of social psychology, dynamical social impact, social networks and dynamics of societal transition.