How and on what basis can we can analyse the entrepreneurial process in the non-profit sector? This article is based on a critical discussion of four paradigms ? value creation, innovation, business opportunity and creation of organisation ? analysed by Verstraete and Fayolle (2005). We examine how these four paradigms can help analyse social entrepreneurship. We suggest that the non-profit sector challenges these four paradigms of entrepreneurship. They suffer from limitations due to assumptions that are not compatible with the non-profit sector. Lastly we conclude that a new set of assumptions should be introduced to provide new insight into social entrepreneurship.