Either pro- nor anti-capitalism: A grounded analysis of social entrepreneurs’ commitment towards alternative ways of doing business

International audienceIf the generic character of social entrepreneurship lies in the ability of social entrepreneurs to maintain a sense of social purpose despite moral intricacies, nothing has been said about the concrete mechanisms and repertoire of methods available to them in order to do so. By drawing upon the analytical framework of the sociology of engagements and a comparative analysis of social entrepreneurship projects, we aim at suggesting that what makes a business alternative a social one lies in the (in)ability of project holders to continually reconfigure and redefine the meaning and the nature of their engagement towards the social sense of mission of their initiative over the course of the project. Two generic situations are highlighted, showing how differenciated forms of engagements could produce emancipatory dynamics through the concretization of the project, or could hamper the capacity of the entrepreneurial team to adapt the project in order to enroll vs. instumentalize and commoditize stakeholders