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The purpose of this paper is to investigate what sort of people become social entrepreneurs, and in what way they differ from business entrepreneurs. More importantly, to investigate in what socio‐economic context entrepreneurial individuals are more likely to become social than business entrepreneurs. These questions are important for policy because there has been a shift from direct to indirect delivery of many public services in the UK, requiring a professional approach to social enterprise.

Evidence is presented from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) UK survey based upon a representative sample of around 21,000 adults aged between 16 and 64 years interviewed in 2009. The authors use logistic multivariate regression techniques to identify differences between business and social entrepreneurs in demographic characteristics, effort, aspiration, use of …