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Social entrepreneurship has become a growing field of research interest. Yet, past research has been held back by the lack of a rigorous measurement instrument. Rather than defining social entrepreneurship as an organizational form that a venture does or does not have, this paper agrees with Dees and Anderson (2006) that the construct is better thought of as a set of practices, processes and behaviors that organizations can engage in to a higher or a lesser degree. In other words, the construct is a set of behaviors that any organization can engage in. The purpose of the paper is to develop scale items to measure the construct of organizational social entrepreneurship (OSE).

Drawing on previous literature, this paper first develops and then validates scales for measuring OSE as a third-order formative construct. As its second order, the scale includes three components that capture the heterogeneity of the OSE concept: social change intention, commercial activity and inclusive governance.

The OSE scale is developed and tested through a sample of 182 nascent social enterprises from 55 different countries in the world and then revalidated using a second sample of 263 mature social enterprises from 6 European countries. Results suggest that the scale items exhibit internal consistency, reliability, construct validity and nomological validity.

The scale presented here offers an important new venue for social entrepreneurship theorizing. First, it allows scholars to take a broad approach toward a diverse field and to study OSE behavior in any empirical field in which it may occur. Second, the scales also allow for more focused theorizing. Scholars are encouraged to delve into the antecedents of all three components presented here and to study the different performance effects they have in terms of likelihood to survive, growth rate or potential to achieve financial sustainability.

The paper develops a multidimensional construct for OSE. In particular, the authors propose scale items for three central components of social entrepreneurship, namely, social change intentions, commercial activities and inclusive governance. The scales thus measure the three formative dimensions identified by Dees and Anderson (2006) and Defourny and Nyssens (2010).

This paper aims to contribute to the field of social entrepreneurship by exploring the interrelationships among the antecedents of social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) through the lens of Mair Noboa model (MNM). In recent years, many researchers have applied the antecedents of MNM to determine SEI. However, interrelationship among these antecedents has not been a focus of enquiry despite the repeated scholarly calls.

Applying quantitative methodology, the data was collected from a Web-based survey distributed across Bangladesh (N = 412). Data analysis was carried out based on the covariance-based structural equation modelling technique to confirm the hypotheses. The final measurement and structural models met all the requirements for reliability, model fit, convergent validity and discriminant validity. The proposed hypotheses were tested based on direct relationships and mediating effects.

The findings suggested that interrelationships among these antecedents do increase individuals’ intentions to become social entrepreneurs.

This paper fills an important knowledge gap by exploring the interrelationships among moral obligation, empathy, perceived social support and social entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This paper stressed identifying whether the SEI enhances through the interrelationships among these antecedents or not. The study findings bring new theoretical and practical implications on the role of empathy, moral obligation, perceived social support and social entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

The purpose of this one‐company case study is to investigate the possible use of causal maps in the performance management and measurement of corporate social responsibility (CSR) related intangibles.

In order to test the suitability of the chosen model, a combined research approach was selected. The combination of inductive and deductive approaches resulted in the most advantageous in order to test the research hypotheses. The pharmaceutical industry was targeted as a noteworthy case study for CSR investment. Novo Nordisk, a leading firm within the pharmaceutical industry, was chosen due to its outstanding corporate social performance (Dow Jones sustainability index STOXX and the Ethibel Sustainability Index).

The use of causal maps at Novo Nordisk is expected to improve the selection of indicators for the company's performance measurement system, so that a financial evaluation of the returns of investments aimed at increasing the value of CRS related intangibles can be made.

The use of causal maps aims to systematically internalise the positive financial effect of investment into CSR related intangibles. In this way the quality of existing performance measurement systems of companies are expected to improve.

This research contributes to CSR and performance measurement literature by analysing the use of causal maps in order to define indicators for CSR related intangibles, to be included in the company's multidimensional performance measurement models.

This paper aims to develop and validate measures of four constructs that have often been identified as antecedents of social entrepreneurial behavior: empathy with marginalized people, a feeling of moral obligation to help these, a high level of self-efficacy concerning the ability to effect social change and perceived availability of social support. Nomological validity is demonstrated by showing that, as specified by Mair and Noboa (2006), empathy and moral obligation are positively associated with perceived desirability and self-efficacy and social support with perceived feasibility of starting a social venture. The Social Entrepreneurial Antecedents Scale (SEAS) provides a basis for future research into the effectiveness of social entrepreneurship education, allowing us to study how different educational interventions impact the four SEAS constructs.

The paper draws on data from two surveys of business school students. Data analysis used both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis for this study. Exploratory factor analysis was used on a first sample to establish the number of factors best representing the data, as well as to identify possibly issues with cross-loadings. Next confirmatory factor analysis was used on the second sample to verify the goodness of fit for the model. Finally, nomological validity was confirmed.

First, this article develops and refines measures of empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and perceived social support within the context of social entrepreneurship. Second, the article tests the dimensionality of the constructs and shows that they are distinctive.

The resulting SEAS instrument adapts constructs such as empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and perceived social support to the context of social entrepreneurship and thus provides the basis for future research into the effectiveness of social entrepreneurship education.

This paper aims to juxtapose two separate perspectives on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in terms of their ability to explain the cognitive alignment between managers and stakeholders on what constitutes the social responsibility of the focal firm, and to explain social performance.

The authors take two perspectives: that of stakeholder engagement, which has historically characterized the debate on CSR; and that of internal change processes required to integrate CSR in a firm's operations. The authors analyze data from 427 interviews, of which 209 were with managers and 219 with stakeholders of 19 multinational firms in eight sectors, to assess the extent of cognitive alignment between managers and stakeholders on the conceptualization of CSR for the relevant firm, to determine which of the two theoretical perspectives is connected with the degree of cognitive alignment, and to determine which of the two is connected with the perception of corporate social performance (CSP).

The data examined show no evidence that the degree of sophistication in stakeholder engagement practices is connected with either the magnitude of cognitive gaps, or the level of CSP; whereas the degree of integration in internal operations is connected with both narrower cognitive gaps and higher CSP.

This paper tackles for the first time the problem of measuring and explaining the gaps between managers and stakeholders about their cognitive representations of CSR. The key result of the analysis is that the standard conceptualization of CSR as a stakeholder engagement process does not suffice neither to explain the variation across firms in their managers' cognitive alignment with stakeholders, nor to explain inter‐firm variation in social performance. The strongest explanation for both alignment and performance comes from the extent to which the firm has actually invested in internal change processes aimed at integrating the principles of CSR in the operations and strategies of the firm.

The purpose of this research is to show how the variety of ways of performing through knowledge and intangible resources exploitation raises the question of how these kind of resources can be coherently and successfully declined into companies' processes and operations, what are the “right”, or appropriate approaches to manage intellectual capital (IC), and how these approaches can disentangle the mechanisms by which those resources contribute to improve companies' organizational performance. In this introduction to the special issue some conceptual interpretations are developed to investigate IC‐based approaches, methods, tools and factors of companies' performance improvement.

The approaches, evidences and insights discussed in this introduction are largely based on the discussion of the topics of the conference “International Forum on Knowledge Assets Dynamics” organized in June 2007 in Matera, Italy. At this conference, leading experts discussed the importance of IC for organizational performance improvement, the IC key‐value drivers of the performance management and measurement, and theoretical concepts of, and practical approaches towards, a high‐performing IC management.

The outcomes of this introduction and of all the contributions to the special issue reflect the current discussion about better operationalization of IC management constructs. This discussion is largely focused on the importance of space for IC management activities, on the main knowledge assets that drive companies' processes improvement, the diversity of the relative relevance of each knowledge asset and the necessity for strategic and managerial decision‐makers to learn to apply general approaches, methodologies and instruments in specific companies. In this context, managing IC was mostly dealt with as a means to reach performance targets.

This introduction as well as all the contributions to the special issue deal with different aspects, which are important in the discussion of needs for a better understanding of the relationships between IC management and companies' performance improvement as well as the approaches, tools, methods and techniques to better disentangle the mechanisms by which knowledge assets, separately or interdependently, contribute to improve companies' organizational performance.