Social Enterpreneurship And Digital Technologies

This paper considers one of the most recent developments in the field of alternative and innovative economic strategies, known as “social entrepreneurship”. Its aim in this regard is to examine new ways to overcome the social gap that according to the World Economic Forum is widening with only 8 people today owning as much as the poorer half of humanity. My main idea is that along with the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with robotization, automatization and digitalization new social problems emerge that need new solutions. One of the possible solutions is based on the emerging concept of social entrepreneurship. To prove this thesis, I have highlighted the need for social entrepreneurship by using critical, historical, comparative, theoretical, practical approaches. In the process I examine both the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship to consider that the accelerated development of digital technologies has two opposite effects – on the one hand they create many new opportunities for social entrepreneurship that can be of benefit to all, and particularly to those in need, but on the other hand they are one of the main reasons for the widening inequalities and wage gap. An attempt is made to understand the various aspects of social entrepreneurship by considering the existing literature and by comparing existing concepts, practices and differences with other forms of entrepreneurship. The main idea is that social entrepreneurship represents one of the possible trends towards finding a solution of the social problems in the age of digital economy.