International entrepreneurship has been studied extensively during the past decades. Oviatt’s and McDougall’s (J Int Bus Stud 25:45–64, 1994) framework describing international new ventures (INVs) has been pivotal in developing this research field. This paper adds to this research field through focusing on a particular type of INVs that typically regard social impact as the core objective rather than a positive side-effect to profit. We collectively label these firms international social ventures (ISV). The paper provides two interrelated contributions. Firstly, a literature review brings a systematic overview of the extant ISV research. Secondly, building on this, five propositions are developed in close relation to each of the essential elements positioned in Oviatt’s and McDougall’s (J Int Bus Stud 25:45–64, 1994) seminal INV framework. In doing so, we illustrate that ISVs share some general characteristics with INVs. However, the particular manifestation of these deviates from the traditional type of INVs. In addition, the underlying rationale differs from traditional pure economic logics by involving a combination of both social and economic logics. The paper proceeds to bring suggestions for future research.

在过去的几十年中，国际企业家精神得到了广泛的研究。Oviatt和McDougall的框架（描述于1994年的Int Bus Stud 25：45-64）描述了国际新创企业（INV）的框架对于发展这一研究领域至关重要。本文将重点放在特定类型的INV上，从而将其添加到该研究领域，这些INV通常将社会影响作为核心目标，而不是对利润产生积极的副作用。我们将这些公司统称为国际社会企业（ISV）。本文提供了两个相互关联的贡献。首先，文献综述对现有的ISV研究进行了系统的概述。其次，在此基础上，与Oviatt和McDougall（J Int Bus Stud 25：45–64，1994）开创性的INV框架中定位的每个基本要素紧密相关地提出了五个命题。通过这样做，我们说明了ISV与INV具有一些共同的特征。但是，这些特殊的表现形式不同于传统的INV类型。此外，基本原理与传统的纯经济逻辑不同，它包含了社会和经济逻辑的结合。本文继续为未来的研究提出建议。