The Potentials of Policy Entrepreneurs to Promote Institutional Change and Social Entrepreneurship

Although the activities of policy and institutional entrepreneurs have received some attention in several studies, the concepts of policy and institutional entrepreneurship are yet vaguely defined and, therefore, broadly integrated within analyses of policy change. To facilitate more integration of the concepts, the paper offers a theoretical discussion of the typological classifications and the similarities and differences of policy entrepreneurship and institutional entrepreneurship with the goal to answer the major research question: What potentials do policy and institutional entrepreneurs have to promote institutional change in the context of social entrepreneurial activities? The aim of the paper is to explain the potentials of policy/ institutional entrepreneurship for promoting institutional change, on the one hand, and social entrepreneurship, on the other hand, while hypothesizing that the recent emergence of social entrepreneurship activities is related to institutional changes in politics as well as the public and non-profit sector also affecting public policy making. The special interest in the interrelatedness of policy/ institutional and social entrepreneurship lies in the rising number of social entrepreneurial activities in recent years as well as new public policies to promote them (e.g. by the European Union, OECD etc.). Therefore, selected cases of entrepreneurial activities driven or supported by policy and institutional entrepreneurs will be presented to better identify and assess the potentials of policy/institutional entrepreneurship on social activities. The theoretical discussion follows a two-fold approach: 1) With an introductory differentiation between economic, social and policy entrepreneurship, a theoretical refinement is developed to better ground further conceptualization. While economic entrepreneurship is correlated with economic development driven by agents of change and innovative personalities; social entrepreneurship aims at solving social problems through individuals as well as public, private and non-profit organizations; and policy entrepreneurship aims at mediating between government, market and civil society ultimately generating innovative, institutional change. 2) After having conceptualized the term policy entrepreneurship, the similarities and differences between the concepts policy and institutional entrepreneurship will be clarified to deduce their potentials for policy and institutional change. The paper shows that policy and institutional entrepreneurs have the potential to support social entrepreneurs who experiment, develop and implement creative, innovative ideas and solutions for overcoming social challenges. Neither the government nor politicians have room for experiments; both can, however, benefit from the creativity and innovativeness of social entrepreneurs. And both have an interest in identifying efficient, sustainable solutions for social challenges. In this regard, the policy entrepreneur has the potential to serve an important mediator and transmitter across actors while impacting on institutional change.