Complexity, Cultural Evolution, and the Discovery and Creation of (Social) Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Exploring a Memetic Approach

Publication Type

Book chapter

Authors

Michael P. Schlaile, Marcus Ehrenberger

Year of publication

2016

Published in

Complexity in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology Research

Editor

Elisabeth S. C. Berger, Andreas Kuckertz

Pubisher

Springer , Cham

Series/labeling

FGF Studies in Small Business and Entrepreneurship

ISBN / ISSN / eISSN

978-3-319-27108-8

DOI

10.1007/978-3-319-27108-8_4

Page (from - to)

63-92

Keywords

Kultur, Kulturwandel, Soziokultureller Wandel, Unternehmertum

The central contribution of this chapter consists in exploring the implications of a memetic perspective for dealing with complexity in (social) entrepreneurship. The line of argument can basically be divided into four aspects. First, it is argued that memes, especially their mental representations, can be conceptualized in the context of (cultural) schemata that have an impact on the perception and discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities. Second, a memetic view of creativity also suggests that opportunity creation strongly depends on memes. Third, viewing social entrepreneurship as a meme(plex) allows us to compare it with related concepts. Moreover, we argue that by focusing on the properties of social entrepreneurial opportunities we can get to the core of the social entrepreneurial process. In this chapter, we are focusing on social entrepreneurial opportunities that can be understood as the intersection of the set of ‘opportunities to solve a societal problem’ and the set of ‘profitable business opportunities’. This conception represents the vantage point for the fourth part of this contribution, where we argue that, in order to facilitate the propagation of the social entrepreneurship meme within (for-profit) organizations, a systematic analysis of the firm’s social network as well as its memeplex is advisable.