The Dark Side of Social Entrepreneurship: Uncovering the Unintended Consequences of Socially Impactful Business Practices

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is widely celebrated as a hybrid model capable of solving societal problems while remaining financially sustainable, yet the literature has largely overlooked its potential negative effects. This paper adopts a qualitative conceptual approach, based on a narrative literature review of recent studies on the "dark side" of social entrepreneurship, to map the unintended consequences that may arise from social-impact business practices. The review synthesizes themes such as mission drift, exploitation of beneficiaries and employees, socialwashing, market crowding-out, and governance risk within hybrid organizations, and situates them within the Indonesian social enterprise context. The findings indicate that these dark sides emerge systematically from the structural tension between social mission and commercial logic rather than from isolated misconduct. The paper concludes with practical and policy implications for building more accountable and reflective social entrepreneurship practices.