Social entrepreneurship and global value chains

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is characterized by arising from private initiative and serving general interests in the socioeconomic environment of a specific community. However, numerous controversies have been recently discussed in the specialized literature on global value chains, which deal with the possibilities of scaling-up and governance in different territories. The main international organizations claim that insertion into these structures constitutes an important opportunity for the local economic development process. With insightful empirical evidence, this theory shows national, regional, and entrepreneurial forms of industrial scaling-up, and thus proves that following specific governance patterns leads to the local development of selected geographical spaces. However, it argues that the possibilities of scaling-up arise from endogenous efforts, which underestimates the power of leading companies in these chains. The article concludes that social business ventures are presented as alternative routes for local development, but insertion into global value chains through scaling-up does not imply a natural and spontaneous development process.