This book is about the creative ways in which social entrepreneurs solve pressing and insurmountable social problems.
Part I. Social Entrepreneurship: 1. Defining social entrepreneurship: an overview; 2. Dimensions of social entrepreneurship; 3. Identifying social entrepreneurship in practice; Part II. The Dynamics of Social Change: 4. Social change theories and dilemmas; 5. Equilibrium and complexity; 6. Theory of social emergence; Part III. Social Capital Built by Social Entrepreneurs: 7. Social capital; 8. Social networks: bedrock of social capital; 9. Personality traits that facilitate the building of social capital; Part IV. A New Kind of Leadership: 10. Social entrepreneurship: a dynamical account; 11. A new kind of leadership; 12. Addressing insurmountable problems and conflicts; Epilogue: the past and the future.
Ryszard Praszkier, Ph.D., is a researcher at the University of Warsaw Complex Systems Research Center. His main field of interest involves the mechanisms of profound peaceful transitions, including social-change processes facilitated by social entrepreneurs, with a special focus on the role and properties of social networks supporting durable social change. Dr Praszkier has authored several academic publications regarding how social entrepreneurs find innovative ways to approach intractable conflicts. For more than 15 years, he has worked for Ashoka, Innovators for the Public, an international association that promotes social entrepreneurship in more than 70 countries.