Abstract

"Connecting the Dots: Business History Research on Social Entrepreneurship in the Global South"

Léna Prouchet, Copenhagen Business School (lep.bhl@cbs.dk)

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) in the Global South is often framed as a recent innovation introduced through Global North–driven development programmes. This perspective overlooks the longstanding and locally embedded practices of SE in these regions. Business history, with its emphasis on contextual analysis and examining long-term change, offers essential tools for uncovering the diverse trajectories and meanings of SE. Yet, business historians have only recently started to engage with SE beyond the Global North. This article offers a narrative review of business historical work on SE, including in the Global South. It highlights the strengths but also limitations of current approaches and identifies underexplored areas, such as grassroots and Indigenous forms of SE. Building on insights from adjacent social sciences disciplines, including development, geography and entrepreneurship studies, the article concludes by outlining future research directions that foreground local agency and alternative visions of social impact and expand the conceptual boundaries of SE within business history.