Social entrepreneurship is becoming an interesting phenomenon for scientific research, and research has intensified during the last approximately 20 years. Given the insufficient detailed research and informal development of social entrepreneurship in both the Republic of Croatia and the European Union, research in the field of social entrepreneurship is increasingly gaining in importance. The main goal of the research is to investigate and analyse the occurrence of social entrepreneurship activities in entrepreneurship holders in the Republic of Croatia and the impact of participatory governance on the development and success rate of social entrepreneurship and to propose a model for the development of social entrepreneurship for public authorities and for future tenders of the European Commission whose aim is to promote and develop social entrepreneurship in the Republic of Croatia. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to understand the process of development and success of social entrepreneurship by exploring the presence and role of participatory governance and to establish and empirically test a model that will have not only theoretical, but also practical importance. The sample selected for the research represents entrepreneurship holders in the Republic of Croatia that, in accordance with the criteria of previous scientific research, can also be social entrepreneurship holders. The first part of the paper defines brief considerations on the topic, research and subject problem, scientific hypotheses of the paper, research purposes and goals, research methodology, expected scientific contribution and structure of the paper. In the second part of the paper, the theoretical aspects of the research are presented: conceptual definition of social entrepreneurship, features of participatory governance in social entrepreneurship and business performance and social entrepreneurship. The third part, titled Research Framework, Empirical Research Methods and Results, consists of three parts: research methodology, conceptual model design and empirical research results. Conclusion of the paper presents research implications and the application of results, and also systematically and concisely formulates and presents the most important research results. The results of the paper show that there is a potential for social entrepreneurship in the Republic of Croatia and that it is necessary to invest further in promotion and to educate entrepreneurs on social entrepreneurship and its importance for the society.