Abstract
We are facing a new trend in doing business moving beyond corporate social responsibility where new hybrid business models are formed to address a variety of societal and environmental challenges. The fourth sector can be defined as the group of organizations, models, and practices whose objective is to solve the great problems of the twenty-first century, combining elements from the three traditional sectors: the public, the private, and the nongovernmental. The fourth sector is rising in different forms in this new entrepreneurial landscape such as social enterprises, business-owned enterprises, cross-sector collaborations, and B corporations. Businesses within the fourth sector are blended value organizations because they pursue social and environmental goals at the same time that they use business methods. This chapter disentangles the meaning of the fourth sector shedding light on the new entrepreneurial ecosystems for new sustainable business models.
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Sánchez-Hernández, M.I., Carvalho, L., Rego, C., Lucas, M.R., Noronha, A. (2021). The Fourth Sector: The Future of Business, for a Better Future. In: Sánchez-Hernández, M.I., Carvalho, L., Rego, C., Lucas, M.R., Noronha, A. (eds) Entrepreneurship in the Fourth Sector. Studies on Entrepreneurship, Structural Change and Industrial Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68390-0_2
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