Entrepreneurship seems to play an important role in economic growth and development, however for local and national development to be accomplished the business environment should provide opportunities to create, innovate and invest. In emerging economies institutional voids proliferate, providing on one hand high potential for entrepreneurial activities—finding niches and social problems to solve--, but also limiting the possibilities of capital access and evidencing market and institutional failures.

Traditionally, the concept of entrepreneurship included a for-profit bottom line; however, recently, researchers and practitioners have begun to explore the concept of the social private enterprise. Indeed, in the last decade, not only a new "type" of entrepreneur has appeared, but also a new "breed" of philanthropist. The social entrepreneur as well as the entrepreneurial philanthropist (also called venture philanthropists) is nowadays in vogue: They have the chance to address problems that are global in scope. Actually, venture/entrepreneurial philanthropists have a close relationship with the social entrepreneur: they invest time, human and financial resources to help them achieve their business plan and targets. The motivations of an entrepreneur and a philanthropist are essentially the same: pinpointing economic or social problems and setting out to solve them in an innovative way.