Strategic Foci in Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: A Comparative Analysis

We investigate whether the strategies deemed important by social entrepreneurs contrast with those of commercial entrepreneurs. We hypothesize that that social entrepreneurs value externally-focused strategies more highly and internally-focused strategies less compared with commercial entrepreneurs. We test our hypotheses using cross-sectional time-series analyses on five waves of Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II (PSED II) data. In support of our hypotheses, we find that strategies focused on serving missed customers, marketing/promotion, and intellectual property are deemed more important by social entrepreneurs. We further find that strategies focused on quality products and contemporary/attractive products are deemed more important by commercial entrepreneurs.