Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility: a discussion on disciplinary domains and strategic relevance

This paper is aimed at addressing two fundamental issues relating to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Entrepreneurship (SE). First is the issue of lack of conceptual clarity of the two terms. Second is the issue of strategic relevance. Towards this end, the first part of this paper aims to sketch out an operational definition and disciplinary boundaries for each of these two concepts. The second part of the paper is devoted to a discussion of how CSR and SE could be relevant for establishing a competitive advantage in times of financial hardship. Directions for future research are presented.