Comparing Social Venturing and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Two Illustrative Cases

Understanding of social venturing activity has been limited due to an impasse in theory building that results from the theorizing being too close to entrepreneurship research literature. This paper proposes taking a cue from psychology to understand the motive of venture sponsors. It contrasts two ventures in the same activity with the same declared goal but one operating along declared commercial lines and the other with a strict eye to a social priority over the commercial. It shows how the sponsor motive is a possible discriminator to tell the two kinds of ventures apart as against an opportunity driven understanding. Practice implications and further research with established scales is suggested for larger studies.