The Impact of the Triple Bottom Line on Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss the impact of the triple bottom line on social entrepreneurship where the triple bottom line is defined as profit, planet and people and social entrepreneurship is defined as entrepreneurial activity embedded with a social purpose such as global warning, poverty, economic inequality, famine, pandemics, terrorism, etc. Specifically, the paper examines the triple bottom line where profit is represented by economic value, planet by sustainability, and people by ethical leadership. The paper also explores social entrepreneurship as a new area of business that takes the problem solving skills of commercial entrepreneurship and combines it with the social concerns of charities and non-profits. The paper concludes that in order for social entrepreneurship to be successful, a paradigm shift of new metrics (beyond the traditional single bottom line metric of profitability) is required.