The institutional context of social entrepreneurship evolution in Europe and the US

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is a fairly new phenomenon in the Russian economy. However, the tradition of socially oriented activities already formed in most developed countries. In this article, in order to analyze the evolution of social entrepreneurship in Europe and the US an interpretation of the concept of "social entrepreneurship" has been refined and drivers of social oriented activities were defined. At the same time, the characteristic of the main driving forces was presented in the paper, contributing to the appearance of social entrepreneurship and including the political conditions and the role of the state, legal and socio-cultural environment and infrastructure.