An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship: Voices, Preconditions, Contexts

Citation

Doherty, B. (2010), "An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship: Voices, Preconditions, Contexts", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 81-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552551011020090

1 Overview and objectives

The aim of this book is to provide a multidisciplinary approach to the complex phenomena of social entrepreneurship and to blend literatures from both economic and sociological perspectives such as social movements. This book is a timely and certainly advances our knowledge beyond the dominant economic discourse surrounding social entrepreneurship.

A key strength of this book is the theoretical position it takes to provide a critical analysis of the generalisations made by some of those organisations promoting social entrepreneurship, particularly the notion that social entrepreneurship is carried out by heroic charismatic individuals. Bodgan, in a very useful Chapter 9 argues the portrayal of social entrepreneurs as heroic personalities is inadequate from a sociological perspective.

The intended audience of this book are international scholars from different disciplines, who are striving to make sense of social entrepreneurship. A key feature of this book is the single authored chapters, which facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to this topic. The book starts with an introduction to social entrepreneurship by the editor, Rafael Ziegler, followed by three key parts (Voices, preconditions and contexts). Each part contains a number of chapters each followed by helpful notes and references.

The first chapter by Ziegler provides an initial analysis on what makes social entrepreneurship initiatives unique and proposes the following criteria: sustainable, innovative, aimed at system change, address issue of equity at the level of need and/or environmental protection, profit not the priority and those supported by the initiative are participants and not mere victims or objects.

The next four chapters each present a case study of social entrepreneurship in practice. Chapter 2 by Michael Kravcik looks at a case study of the organisation People and Water in Slovakia. This water management NGO (Non Governmental Organisation) illustrates the value of both persistent campaigning and targeting the media and other key stakeholders and how this prevented the state and other large private sector companies from building the controversial Tichy Potok dam. This struggle is a good example of the “battle of ideas”, in this case the “new water paradigm”. Chapter 3 by Judy Korn presents the “one to one” approach of the Violence Prevention Network (VPN) in Germany, which works with juvenile offenders who are motivated by racist and religious prejudice. The VPN programme combines political, education and antiviolence pedagogy in a comprehensive training programme demonstrating impressive results. Chapter 4 by Krzysztof Stanowski is a case study of FED (Education for Democracy Foundation). The aim of FED is to produce change and to develop the understanding of rights and responsibilities and works in non‐democratic countries. FED works in former communist countries to introduce democracy at a local level.

These three case studies share a number of similarities. First, all the lead individuals in each organisation have been awarded an Ashoka fellowship. All have found the resources, support and network facilitated by Ashoka to be extremely valuable. However, all organisations have been successful due to implementing a stakeholder approach and working as a family of people to create an effective organisation within a network. Therefore, all three case studies highlight a problem with the notion of the heroic individual social entrepreneur as being to simplistic. In all case studies this can lead to difficulties because each organisation featured is based on a network and run by a number of founders from social movements and not business. This illustrates the value of a sociological perspective on social entrepreneurship. The experience of the social entrepreneurs in these case studies is that without the effective organisation and without the people around you and without an understanding of the mechanism of implementation you cannot be effective, even if you are innovative you may not be entrepreneurial. Chapter 4 also highlights the confusion with the term social entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe. Stanowski also identifies a problem with too much state interference in social entrepreneurship. Chapter 5 by Philip Albers and Holme Friebe from ZIA, the central intelligence agency (a web‐based self employed marketing network) again appears to highlight a problem with the notion of the individual social entrepreneur as being to simplistic.

The second part of this book looking at the preconditions for social entrepreneurship, provides and important theoretical contribution to help develop our understanding of social entrepreneurship. First of all, Chapter 6 by Richard Swedberg explores the potential for Schumpeter's full model of entrepreneurship to be applied to social entrepreneurship. According to Swedberg, Schumpeter is generally seen as the first major economist to develop a theory of entrepreneurship. Swedberg argues in this chapter that Schumpeter opens the door to conceptualise social entrepreneurship as a mechanism of social change. First, Schumpeter's full model of entrepreneurship has five key elements including; motivation, innovation, overcoming resistance, entrepreneurial profit and link to the business cycle (see box 6.2).

At the heart of this thesis is the actual pushing through of the new innovation and the actual carrying out of the new combination. Schumpeter clarifies that innovation differs from invention; it can be part but is not the innovation itself. Swedberg argues that Schumpeter has been narrowly represented as technological innovation and also the entrepreneurial function need not be embodied in a single physical person and argues you need a collective team of people. New innovation could also be a new way of organising the economic process with new products and services. In the case of social entrepreneurship the innovation is social. Swedberg also adds new legal forms as a form of innovation. Swedberg argues that Schumpeter opens the door to conceptualise social entrepreneurship as a mechanism of social change. The motivation is a sense of “social mission”. Profit doesn't really capture the fact that profit can be used for social change! Overcoming resistance is the resistance to social change, which anchors the existing way of doing things in economic customs, conventions and traditions (see box 6.4). The case studies in chapters two to five illustrate this very well.

Chapter 7 by Eva Illouz on the culture of management: self‐interest, empathy and emotional control takes a very interesting look at emotional control in organisations. Eva Illouz proposes the notion of emotional capitalism, requiring emotional competence to demonstrate ones capacity to cooperate with others. This model of communication is required to develop good relationships and master social relations. Perhaps this chapter could be strengthened by discussing in more depth the links to the management of social enterprises. Perhaps this chapter could have utilised literature on business ethics and also captured the collective spirit of social entrepreneurship.

Chapter 8 by Rob Boddice is an excellent critical piece of those who view social entrepreneurship as a new phenomenon. For example; David Bornstein described Florence Nightingale as an ethically‐driven social entrepreneur. This chapter is about the forgotten antecedents of social entrepreneurship and argues that the characteristics of entrepreneurship are shaped by different historical contexts, which has roots in a variety of movements. Boddice goes onto explain that Matthew Boulton and Josiah Wedgwood were early pioneers of social entrepreneurship, providing high quality housing and education for their workers and then Robert Owen (UK cotton mill entrepreneur) and others in the USA focused on a very paternal approach towards workers based on family life and equality of females. In short, from its early beginnings, the combination of entrepreneurial activity with a social mission has been characterised by a combination of altruism and self‐interest. The key difference in mainland Europe was the combination of industrialisation with staunch Catholicism. One of the leading social Catholics was Leon Hamel in France, he was a mill owner with a passionate care for the conditions of his employees and his mission was driven by his devout Catholicism. This chapter then suggests examples in the USA, such as Henry Ford, who led the way in changing industrial standards and pay and conditions in the USA. However, to qualify for a $5 per day salary, workers had to conform to a set of moral standards. This chapter asks; where does the desire for change come from in the social entrepreneur? Why from trading, why not just become a social worker? Boddice proposes that social entrepreneurship is a plausible epilogue to the spirit of capitalism, justified by those business people who choose for their ownself worth to do something more meaningful. This perhaps describes one type of social entrepreneur but not those who originate from social movements, which this chapter appears to ignore. Everett Hage wrote that social entrepreneurs add moral value back to business and this chapter could explore ethical perspectives and motivations to develop this argument further

Chapter 9 by Ion Bogdan Vasi provides a very interesting sociological perspective on social entrepreneurship and argues that despite the focus on social change little has been done from a sociological perspective. Bogdan argues the interpretation of social entrepreneurs as heroic personalities is inadequate from a sociological perspective and that most work on this topic is currently rooted in an economic analysis. This chapter emphasises the catalytic effect of social entrepreneurs in social transformation and proposes that social entrepreneurship is similar to social movement activism in two ways.

First, both are inherently political phenomena, both have to overcome resistance to social change by mobilising resources and taking advantage of political opportunities and engaging in framing processes. This is particularly the case with respect of those social entrepreneurs who are building local capacities and mobilising grassroots groups. Second, both are complex phenomena that are irreducible to just the creation of organisations and their growth, the outcomes are greater than normal business metrics, i.e. catalyst for change.

However, not covered in this chapter is the fact that social enterprises and social movements are not mutually exclusive and some social movement organisations such as Twin Trading in London develop viable social enterprises run by social entrepreneurs. Another promising direction in this chapter is the proposition that we should examine how social entrepreneurs employ framing processes to increase their ventures legitimacy and consequently their chances of success. Many social enterprises commence outside the business mainstream and like social movement activists have to change people's perceptions, such that social arrangements that are normally perceived as just and immutable must come to be seen both as unjust and mutable, both social entrepreneurs and social activists mobilise potential adherents and constituents to demobilise antagonists (fair trade campaigners etc.). They also innovate framing and creative strategies to provide legitimacy.

Chapter 10 by Paola Grenier adopts a social constructivist perspective to provide an excellent critical analysis of the political context surrounding social entrepreneurship in the UK. The chapter explains that; Margaret Thatcher (UK Prime Minister 1979‐1991) initiated an enterprise culture and labelled those on welfare as dependent on the state. However, the de‐regulated free market did not take account of the moral component. Also, there was an absence of “community” in the enterprise discourse and increasing levels of inequality. New Labour (NL) was voted into power in 1997 re‐emphasising the importance of society. NL's discourse emphasised community, partnership, inclusion, citizenship etc. NL promised to bring together economic prosperity and social cohesion under the banner of the “third way” and sought to retain the enterprise progress made under conservative governments but to place social justice as central to policy in the tradition of social democratic politics (Blair, 1998; Giddens, 1998, 2000).

Enterprise and entrepreneurship remained strong themes and therefore the socialising of business became increasingly commonplace with discussions around “social capital”, social inclusion and even fair trade. The idea of social entrepreneurship was picked‐up and advocated by key people in left of centre think tanks who had close links with labour party. The Demos report: The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur was especially influential. Therefore, social entrepreneurship and its organisational form social enterprises became a policy issue and NL had managed to free enterprise from its Thatcherite connotations of individual greed by linking enterprise to issues of inclusion, regeneration and personal aspiration.

Grenier then cleverly goes on to explain how the notion of the social entrepreneur as the charismatic hero, who transforms society for social good was initially not so convenient for NL as policy agendas were focused on reform and modernisation, rather than radical transformation. A more convenient notion was the Managerial Social Entrepreneur, portrayed as skilled, rational, strategic and performance focused but with ethical values. The aim was to change the existing voluntary sector to be more business like, which was more convenient for the NL government, particularly in settings such as public sector reform.

This chapter in section 10.5 also provides a very useful overview of the landscape for social entrepreneurship in the UK, with a mapping of the key agencies (see table 10.1, p. 194), key policy and think tank reports (table 10A.1, p: 205). The chronological outline of the key policy interventions in section 10.5 is most useful, particularly from a teaching perspective. The chapter could perhaps discuss in more depth the work of the Social Enterprise Coalition.

Chapter 11 by Daniel Hjorth is another excellent chapter looking at a public form of entrepreneurship and proposes entrepreneurship to be part of society rather than primarily to business and also suggests it is distinct from management. Hjorth argues that entrepreneurship has become part of the management discourse due to the managerialisation of society and its economisation. This chapter presents an alternative to the neoliberal programme of social entrepreneurship and presents public entrepreneurship and how it can be activated by Art. Hjorth argues that social has been lost to the economy in the social entrepreneurship discourse and is keen for social entrepreneurship not to be co‐opted by management and survive as a creative force.

Chapter 12 titled “Social entrepreneurship and sustainable development” by Seelos and Mair is another excellent chapter. Organisations are struggling at a global level to develop frameworks that enable local action to result in a form of global sustainable development. This chapter proposes that social entrepreneurs working at a local level in poor countries can be part of this solution and looks at the case of Sekem in Egypt, which is an organic agriculture and bio pharmaceutical company. The chapter argues that to achieve one of the Millennium Development goals of reducing poverty, then economic development is essential and therefore social entrepreneurship could play a vital role.

In summary, the book is a welcome and timely contribution to improving the understanding of social entrepreneurship and the work of social entrepreneurs. The text provides an excellent critical analysis of the dominant economic discourse surrounding social entrepreneurship.

A About the reviewer

Bob Doherty is a senior academic from Liverpool Business School (Liverpool John Moores University) and editor of the International Social Enterprise Journal and co‐author of a new textbook titled Management of Social Enterprise. Bob's research area is focused on how fair trade social enterprises combine both business and social goals in highly competitive markets (publications below). He is also programme leader of the master's in Social Enterprise Management at Liverpool Business School and has recently completed a two‐year knowledge transfer partnership as lead academic with Divine Chocolate. Prior to moving into academia Bob spent five years as Head of Sales and Marketing at the innovative Fairtrade social enterprise, Divine Chocolate Ltd. Bob is also a member of the Co‐operative Retail Group's Ethical Advisory Panel and also Chairs Liverpool's Fairtrade Steering Committee. Prior to his move into the fair trade sector he spent eight years working in the veterinary pharmaceutical sector. In a voluntary capacity, Bob is Chair of the Liverpool City Fair trade Steering Committee, which campaigned for Liverpool to become a fair trade city in March 2004. Bob Doherty can be contacted at: r.doherty@ljmu.ac.uk