Themes include, but are not limited to:

• Social entrepreneurship processes involving opportunity recognition and evaluation
• Organizational forms of social enterprises, beyond hybridity
• Challenges of scaling and measuring social impact
• The dark side of social entrepreneurship
• Emerging themes in social entrepreneurship education
• Cross-cultural comparative studies in social entrepreneurship
• Research challenges in social entrepreneurship

Over the past 17 years, our conference has had something for everyone—academics, practitioners, and students who are interested in social enterprise, innovation, sustainability, and impact. While our conference participants represent a wide range of viewpoints, we are all united by a commitment to building and supporting social entrepreneurs and their organizations. We hope you gain useful insights and inspiration during our time together at our 18th annual conference in Los Angeles.

For more information, view the 2020 program for our 17th Annual—and first virtual—Social Entrepreneurship Conference.

What to expect of the conference?

Dozens of accepted papers will be presented and discussed in parallel sessions, which will include featured discussants. Participants will have access to all uploaded material prior to the conference.

An innovation again this year:  We will welcome proposals for panel sessions during the conference.

A panel session consists of a conversation between three or four panelists with different perspectives to exchange views on a relevant and current topic, often with one of the panelists serving as facilitator of the discussion and session chair. Audience members can be involved in the discussion as well. A panel session should not be a collection of individual paper presentations.

Past Keynote Speakers

Over the past 17 years, we have been fortunate to have the foremost thought leaders, scholars, and social entrepreneurs present their latest work and initiatives.

In past years, some of our keynotes within our academic conference—which has taken place at University of Southern California, New York University, and Northeastern University, among others—have included Julie Battilana, William Baumol, Marya Besharov, Gordon Bloom, Paul Bloom, Oana Branzei, Debbi Brock, Tina Dacin, Silvia Dorado, Alnoor Ebrahim, Mary Ann Glynn, Helen Haugh, Kai Hockerts, Geoffrey Kistruck, Jim Koch, Norris Krueger, Matthew Lee, Paul Light, Tom Lumpkin, Johanna Mair, Jeffery McMullen, Kumar Nair, Alex Nicholls, Anne-Claire Pache, Ana Maria Peredo, Philip Phan, Jeffrey Robinson, Filipe Santos, Christian Seelos, Durreen Shahnaz, Dean Shepherd, Ute Stephan, Paul Tracey, David Townsend, Jeffrey York, and Tyler Wry.

Within our practitioner conference, Nobel laureates Paul Romer, Michael Spence, and Muhammad Yunus, as well as Scott Barrie, David Bornstein, Margot Brandenburg, Laura Callanan, Susan Davis, Greg Dees, Cheryl Dorsey, Bill Drayton, Jed Emerson, Darell Hammond, Scott Harrison, Andrew Kassoy, Mark Kramer, Tris Lumley, Debra Natelshon, Jacqueline Novogratz, Sara Olsen, Linda Rottenberg, Jason Saul, Billy Shore, Richard Steele, Tom Szaky, Brian Trelstad, Michael Weinstein, and Georgette Wong, among others, have been with us over the years.

In addition, a number of established social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship scholars will be present at the conference, including associate editors at the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Small Business Management, Small Business Economics, and Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.