Abstract/Summary

Social enterprises must achieve both social and financial goals. These goals need to be aligned when balancing divergent interests for positive social change, financial viability and securing suitable funding. Tensions between the goals can frequently arise. To date, the literature has paid little attention to identifying and classifying ethical tensions that social entrepreneurs face in practice. We develop a conceptual framework for addressing ethical tensions informed by two key sources. Using normative ethical theory as our reference framework, we draw on insights from a series of interviews and practice‐led observations with entrepreneurs and leaders of social enterprises to support our theorising. We identify a triangle of interrelated ethical tensions related to organising, belonging and conjoint learning and performing. By integrating traditional ethical theories with a business ethics‐as‐practice perspective, our findings suggest that navigating ethical tensions in social enterprises, requires an agile approach to ethical decision‐making, marked by ethical vitality in using various ethical approaches, in context‐specific and evolving ways. We suggest a series of propositions that future empirical research might examine.