Social Entrepreneurship in Morocco: A View on the Cultural Factor

Social entrepreneurship is a broad term that does not entail a conventional definition. However, scholars have provided frameworks in defining it by taking into account the social and the entrepreneurial elements of the concept (Mair and Matri, 2005). There are three ways to define social entrepreneurship. The first way is introducing it as a concept that comprises the creation of innovative, sustainable solutions to instant social problems (James and Charles, Brett and Barr, 2007). The second definition is providing a double meaning to the individual social entrepreneurs: “latent social entrepreneurs” with implicit external corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Dees, 1998) and “manifest social entrepreneurs” leading explicit social businesses devoted to alleviating a social problem and introducing strategies for systemic change (Bloom and Chatterji, 2009). Third, providing an organizational meaning to it in three main displays: (1) enterprise orientation — delivering goods or services to a market; (2) social aims — explicit social and/or environmental aims where the profit is reinvested to keep entrepreneurial sustainability; and (3) social ownership — a sovereign governance and ownership based on accountable participation by stakeholder groups or by trustees (Alter, 2007).