The article analyzes the main approaches of Western authors in relation to social entrepreneurship. The subject of the research is a combination of commercial and non- commercial activity of enterprises in the modern economy. The characteristic features and essential features of social entrepreneurship models are revealed: Anglo-American, continental, and synthetic. The article concludes that modern social entrepreneurship in most cases has hybrid forms of organization, is based on a socially-oriented goal (mission), focuses on the production of social change, the solution of social problems through the entrepreneurial nature of income-generating activities based on the use of business technologies.