The problem of constructing social entrepreneurship as a performative phenomenon: competition of meanings and values in the discourse of key stakeholders

The aim of the research is to consider how discourses of social entrepreneurship are correlated in the rhetoric of officials and business entities. The method of research is discourse analysis. Sources of information for the analysis are 50 semi-formalised interviews with social entrepreneurs in Tomsk conducted in 2017, interview materials with officials posted in the media, documents posted in official network resources of the President of Russia. The problem situation consists in the fact that at the moment there is no conventional understanding and definition of the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship. This phenomenon has a clearly expressed performative nature, that is, it should be regarded as a "social construct", as a product of interpretations of reality in social communication. Social constructs, finding their own language expression (discourses), contribute to changing real social practices. Discourse analysis showed a significant difference in the meanings of social entrepreneurship activities in the official discourse and in the discourse of social entrepreneurs. The request for social entrepreneurship in the official rhetoric reflects the weak performativity of the social entrepreneur from the point of view of the state, which means a low social impact capacity of the constructed image of the social entrepreneur which becomes a duplicate of social protection and support services. The spectrum of self-identifications and roles of social entrepreneurs is wider. They are characterised by an orientation toward fulfilling the social mission, by over-standard goals for transforming the culture of interactions, the public consciousness of people and by the satisfaction of higher existential needs. Values they generate produce a new social environment, new values, meanings and life styles rather than specific goods and services. The specificity of these values overcomes the opposition of social and economic values and combines them in the dynamic production of the multiplicity of forms of a value generated by social entrepreneurs who, to varying degrees, are both businesspeople and subjects of social development. Among such forms, discourse analysis identifies a shared value; a value co-created with the consumer; a social impact value. These types of values rely on the vision of the strong performativity of social entrepreneurship which is understood as a key agent of social impact activities. Thus, differences in the discourses of describing the phenomenon of social en-trepreneurship reflect the competition between the state and social entrepreneurs for the performative definition of social entrepre-neurship which will determine the content and boundaries of the activities of social entrepreneurs in Russia.

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