As social entrepreneurship gains maturity, research has begun to explore the less alluring aspects of the field, including the heroic stance of social entrepreneurs, the assumed moral superiority of their intentions, and the misleading emphasis on solutionism. In this paper, we explore a central component of this criticism, which is the construction of un-realistic venture ideas in social entrepreneurs' pitches for social change. We analysed social venture business plans and the written feedback provided by judges during a social venture competition, and we used speech act theory to analyse the claims and promises triggering judges' disbelief. We discovered three linguistic artefacts that underlie the construction of un-realistic venture ideas in social entrepreneurship, which we label holism, devotion, and enlightenment. While these artefacts trigger disbelief, they also play an expressive role as they channel both contestation and dreams. We leverage magical realism to forward an alternative explanation of how venture ideas in social entrepreneurship can act as a cultural form of social protest, which can be seen as a historically contingent, modern revolution.
BACKGROUND OF EL PRIORAT AND THE MAGNIFICENT FIVE In the mid-1980s, a group of adventurers passionate about viticulture staked out a corner of Spain's Western Catalonia region in remote El Priorat to produce wines. The pioneers, René Barbier of Clos Mogador and Álvaro Palacios of Clos Dofí, blazed the path and were soon followed by Daphne Gloriann of Clos Erasmus, Carlos Pastrana of Clos de l'Obac, and José Luis Pérez of Clos Martinet. These five wine entrepreneurs would later be dubbed the "Magnificent Five," partly in recognition of their pioneering work and leadership to revive El Priorat's historical wine industry. iii Priorat's regional success was predicated on three factors: 1) the dry climate and poor-nutrient Llicorella soil that drove the vines deep into the earth, resulting in unique flavors, 2) the ancient vineyards that had been continuously tended since the 1200s by monks and farmers, and 3) the ingenuity of the five newcomers.
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