The quest towards finding social in social entrepreneurship: Analyzing contradictory institutional logics at contexts of social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is a heterogeneous organizational field which on the one hand builds upon highly established institutions/organizational forms and on the other continuously bears new emergent combinations. Responding to this empirical opportunity, this study aims to explore the institutional context of social entrepreneurship. First the repertoires of organizing modes and manifested tensions among those are examined. Following, strategies taken by the actors and dimensions of agency are briefly analyzed. Finally, it is suggested that social entrepreneurship might better be seen as an 'institutional field under construction' where institutional work is going on at multiple sites and where different conceptions of agency take more visible charge at some works/sites.