From Entrepreneur to Social Entrepreneur: The Rise of Social Entrepreneurs in China

In the last decade, social entrepreneurship has been rapidly emerging as a focal point for research and practice in many countries. Social entrepreneurship is a growth area, both in practice and in academic circles. Its value is generally assumed to be the contribution that social entrepreneurs can make to solving pressing and intractable social problems. At a time the whole world is deep in economical and social trouble, it is helpful for us to understand the detail of social entrepreneurship. Nowadays, more and more people start to pay attention to them recently. Charles Leadbeater says that "social entrepreneurs affect the transforming of society such as what the business entrepreneurs do for the economy". This paper, in view of the rise of social entrepreneurship in China, analyses the characteristics social entrepreneurs by comparing them with business entrepreneurs. Based on the current situation, this paper gives out some suggestions on how to incubate a friendly environment for the development of social entrepreneurship in China.