Beyond Markets: Entrepreneurship in the Civil Society

Entrepreneurship, as a societal phenomenon, is not embedded in those abstractions we call markets, but rather in what we do daily, oftentimes unintentionally and even accidentally, simply as a result of just doing stuff. In recent years, we have witnessed an array of individuals and communities in the civil society, who are mobilizing identities, extant resources and entrepreneurial spirits towards new organisational forms that enable improving their wellbeing and reshaping their realities. entrepreneurs can always create ventures to help others in non-financial ways, their start-ups not only generate gains but also contribute to others by focusing their attention on future-oriented issues and solutions. Unlike command and control development favoured by exogenous actors, entrepreneurship in the plural sector is a socially and territorially embedded process, where social issues are owned and solved from the ground-up by means of collective venturing, driven by a sense of realization and a desire to repair local circumstances. These new civil society ventures are posing challenges to the current functioning of markets and support tools. Mixtures of informal and formal mechanisms, unbounded labour, non-economic transactions, purpose-driven profit, collaborative governance and ownership, territorial attachment, and non-scalability are some of the features local governments, established companies, formal economies and the very same field of entrepreneurship need to deal with looking forward.