Author(s): Abderrazak Belabes
This article explores the epistemological assumptions of the social entrepreneurship literature in Saudi Arabia after studying it in detail in my teaching of a master course on social entrepreneurship at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. Most publications are based on a positivist posture, while a minority adopts a constructivist posture. An epistemological posture that deals with social entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia cannot fail to work both on the complexity of the phenomenon and the way to approach it. In this sense, social utility must not be limited to the object of study, it must extend to the epistemological posture through which this object is approached to avoid further cognitive bias which is learned attitudes that we are not always aware of. This awareness will not only allow a better approach to the subject but will also open the field of practice to the development of open systems and to get out of closed - entropic - and therefore self-destructive systems, as shown by research on the general systems theory which sheds light on the nature of complex systems, such as the case of social entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia.