Abstract: Social entrepreneurship, as an emerging form of entrepreneurship that applies business principles to solve social issues, has become a hot topic in academic research and practical exploration over the past two decades. This form of entrepreneurship has not only attracted widespread participation from the practitioner community but also facilitated the in-depth theoretical research into its complex underlying mechanisms. Despite over twenty years of researches into social entrepreneurship theory, its research themes remain scattered, with numerous theoretical phenomena still awaiting in-depth exploration and elucidation. Given this, there is an urgent need to draw upon established theoretical models, and integrate and expand the existing research, so as to advance the development in the field of social entrepreneurship. In this context, by reviewing the domestic and international literature on social entrepreneurship, this paper summarizes, analyzes and comments the related studies according to the A-CEM-A model in the self-regulation theory. Based on the review of the existing researches, a model of the whole self-regulation process for social entrepreneurs is developed, highlighting the iterative process of dynamic changes and behaviors of social entrepreneurs induced by empathy and sympathy in the dynamic process of social entrepreneurship.

Key words: social entrepreneurship, the self-regulation theory, prosocial motivation, opportunity exploitation, resource mobilization