Sorry, all entrepreneurship is not social
Every so often, another expert pontificates about the “social” in social entrepreneur. The idea being, all entrepreneurs, by definition, create something of social importance.
The latest is Carl Schramm, the well-regarded CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. He writes:
One danger, however, is that the use of the modifier social will diminish the contributions of regular entrepreneurs—that is, people who create new companies and then grow them to scale. In the course of doing business as usual, these regular entrepreneurs create thousands of jobs, improve the quality of goods and services available to consumers, and ultimately raise standards of living.
via Social Innovation Article : All Entrepreneurship is Social (February 23, 2010).
Then, he goes on to say that, for one example, improvements in life expectancy can partially be attributed to goods and services invented and distributed by entrepreneurs.
But, surely, this misses the point. Social entrepreneurship is about intention as much as anything else. It’s about people who set out to address a specific social or environmental problem through a for-profit model or a mix of nonprofit and for-profit structures. Sure, many entrepreneurs have started companies selling things that helped people. But, most of the time, that was just an added benefit, not part of the business model or, as the jargon goes, part of the company DNA.
Those two situations are very different.
Also, would this therefore mean that a business selling, say, a new type of frying pan or tax services to help the rich avoid paying anything to Uncle Sam–those are inherently socially responsible companies? That’s just silly.
Entrepreneurship, generally, is a productive and difficult endeavor. Why can’t we just keep it at that?
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I hear you but analysis is what people do a lot of today, and it is the college business books now (“Management” by Schermerhorn pp.104,269″), my class uses it and a 1/3 of our grade is on a group social entrepreneur project, which is one of the reasons I follow you! Note, last years class got funding from a foundation and opened a real food coop, the whole works, building, truck, registers, everything! There was no where for these low income housing unit people to buy affordable fruits and vegetables. The foundation asked the kids “what will you do if the supermarket lowers their prices and you go under” and they told him “good, that works too” and he was so taken aback he gave the funding! That is going to be hard to beat, any ideas? Joking…
Thanks. http://thegldc.com/blog/2010/03/07/local-food-is-now-more-local/
Is your class on entrepreneurship? On business in general? Just curious.
What ideas do you have so far for your social entrepreneur project? Are you trying to address a particular problem in your area?
How did the class last year get involved with the affordable fruits and vegetables idea? Is it still in operation?
Thanks for your interest Mrs.Field, I was trying to bait you into looking at the topic more! BADM -1120 (Description: Introduction to management principles, concepts, and skills employed in operation of a business organization. Emphasis on functions of management including planning, organizing, staffing, leading, controlling, and decision-making./copy/paste) is a standard business course, it is the instructor (Mr. Andrew Bajda)that makes the class special in that all that is learned has to be applied to the group project, so for example we learned a bunch of organizational structures, those flow chart looking diagrams, we have to do that in the project. Although there are 3 campuses (we are the second biggest college in Ohio, O.S.U. is #1 but we are 2 year Associate Degree, in Cleveland Oh. students at 3 campuses and 2 Corporate Colleges with 30,000 credit students, I believe we have around 7,000 full timers,so the vast majority are web based a class or two, but it’s a big school!) Many (I wish all) of my classes are at the Metro campus, that is a mile out of downtown Cleveland and it is the poorest section of the city, a lot of public housing units and few stores. The stores cater to beer, wine, lottery, chips, not much more. There is a food terminal for the produce fairly close, most of the cities stores got their vegetables from out of there and last years class worked with that terminal and doors just kept opening like it was meant to be, even someone donating a truck. They are just getting of the ground, it is working. I am 49 (job retraining) and have not heard many stories of a group of young people holding together like that, the class is over for them, I find it remarkable.
Our group is trying to put together a day care to enable single mothers to go get job training, which maybe just a walk across the street to our school! another is working on small business development with vacant buildings, and I don’t know what all the groups are doing yet.
This does make the learning stick more, as your applying it, but it is a challenge also, it is not easy, it is work.
Please feel free to communicate, I am sending a link of my particular program- e business management, to you on your tip line, you than will have my email, thanks!