Social entrepreneurship, as an emerging academic field, although one still in the very early stage of its development, has been nourished by many of the key concepts developed within the commercial entrepreneurship literature, but this is beginning to change as the social entrepreneurship landscape has become a more fundamental part of the collection of entrepreneurship practices. This paper is concerned with how best to develop a new research paradigm, and considers ways in which this research approach is different from, but complementary to, commercial entrepreneurship research agenda in theory, as well as practice