How Social Enterprises Change: The Perspective of the Evolution of Technology

A novel account of social enterprises is presented by explaining that they are technologies. This perspective leads to an understanding that social enterprises evolve in two different ways. First, individual social enterprises are subject to a non-Darwinian, 'combinatorial' evolution. This helps explain how social enterprises change incrementally, how they get stuck, and how they then must look to new, inventive principles to advance. Second, social enterprises evolve as a domain, which is a set of tools, practices, and activities underlying a discipline. This second form of evolution propels the entire field forward. Finally, an explanation is given for how one technology domain 'encounters' another, bringing about changes to them both.