Business model innovation of social entrepreneurship firm: A case study of TerraCycle

With increasingly emerging social problems, new challenges have been brought to commercial enterprises with the traditional business models. There are more and more companies start to care about corporation social responsibility. Organizations that specially aim to relieve those social pressures have multiplied gradually as well. Nevertheless, the two forms above have their limitations due to the ultimate emphasis on profit maximization or social value only. How to accomplish the social mission and realize finance sustainability at the same time has led the researchers and entrepreneurs to explore further. Social entrepreneurship has been proved to be a good solution. It takes social mission as first pursuit and creates new methods in terms of finance, management and daily operation. This paper begins with the literature review of social entrepreneurship and business model. Afterwards, a comparison between social and traditional enterprises will be made. A further analysis of the innovative business model of social entrepreneurship will be discussed with a practical case - TerraCycle.