Social enterprises are the organizations which aim their efforts toward improving the general welfare of society and they apply market-based strategies to achieve a social purpose. The movement includes both non-profit and profit organizations with non-profit organizations using business models to pursue their mission and profit organizations incorporating a social agenda into their business model. The present paper addresses the factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in economic, social, cultural and technological contexts for poor and marginalized groups that lead to social transformation. The impact of social transformation on these factors is calculated by comparing the prestage and post-stage situations. Here, a scale of social development is used to measure the effectiveness and significance of social transformation. Confirmatory factor analysis is performed through AMOS to determine the goodness-of-fit of the model and its significance.

Schumpeter (1951) and Drucker (1985), in their research, stated that entrepreneurship itself lies on the creation of value through innovation. Entrepreneurship in India has been full of ups and downs since the early British era, when the entrepreneur was considered more or less a broker or moneylender, bound by caste affiliations and religious, cultural and social forces right from the philosophy of Dharma down to the joint family system. The growth of entrepreneurship was restricted by many factors like the absence of effective communication system, lack of political unity and stability, existence of regulatory barriers, varied currency system and tax policies. The spirit of entrepreneurship has developed through a number of political and economic factors in India over the time. As applied more recently to social concerns, the concept has taken a variety of meanings. In this perspective, entrepreneurs have used business skills and knowledge to create enterprises that accomplish social purposes, in addition to being commercially viable (Emerson and Twersky, 1996).

Entrepreneurs engaged in social transformation are always on the lookout for community’s requirements, wherein by applying marketing principles they can solve the issue. A definite part of being a social entrepreneur is commitment, as the remedies for issues that they identify are usually quite creative, and therefore sometimes quite difficult. In general, social entrepreneurs do not start out with the goal of making money, but in the long run, switch to a profit-oriented business. A lot of problems faced by social entrepreneurs in the past like poverty, improper career growth opportunities, etc. influence them to do something about these problems later in their life.

Entrepreneurship Development Journal, Social Transformation, Social Entrepreneurship, Exploratory Study, Barriers, Varied currency system, Tax policies.