The Ideological Fundamentals of Social Entrepreneurship: the Political Economy Aspect

Abstract

For many centuries ideology has been playing a major role in the development of societies and economies. It can evolve at the level of the state (the macro-level), as well as at the level of enterprises (the micro-level). At the level of special enterprises, such as social ones, the special ideology that shapes their behavior model, their development strategy and creates the fundamentals of their social mission that make them different from ordinary commercial enterprises, exists. This paper attempts to search for the ideological fundamentals of social entrepreneurship that shape their special way in the socio-economic development of several countries at the modern phase of the formation development. The social and economic missions are assumed to comprise the base of ideology of any social enterprise. The social mission of social enterprises refers to value creation for the “public good”, whereas their economic mission refers to value creation for “private gain”. It is shown that the ideology of social enterprises is reflected in the balance between these two missions during different periods of its development. It is concluded that in the historical perspective the outcome of this balance depends on the institutional pressure in a given country. The modern post-Soviet critical Marxism approach is used as a theoretical and methodological basis of the study. Due to it, the main formations of socio-economic development are derived and the development vector for the long run is specified.