This Course will clarify the definition and meaning of Social Entrepreneurship and will focus on the need to learn about the source and root of a social problem. You will be introduced to different perspectives about Social Entrepreneurship and you will learn about complementary and opportunistic assets which will help you to detect an opportunity and develop an idea of how to create a business for social change. From a practical perspective you will be asked to initiate a team formation process and start to think about a problem topic that you want to address with your social venture in the future. You will work in a team to research this topic and will gradually start to think about a particular opportunity and identify a purpose for your social venture project.
Who is a Social Entrepreneur?
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Identifying Social Entrepreneurship Opportunities
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Who is a Social Entrepreneur
With Module 3 you have reached halftime of Course 1. Congratulations! This Module will answer the question what it takes people to become Entrepreneurs. In addition you will be introduced to the concept of a Community Enterprise. Your personal challenge will be to define your future role within your project team and to think about how to find opportunities to address social problems.
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Kai Hockerts
Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
Welcome back to Social Entrepreneurship, the MOOC.
My name is Kai Hockerts and I'm happy to see you again here this week.
I'm very excited to have seen over the last week how many of you have engaged
in the Seven Day Challenge.
It is very encouraging to see that many of you have identified important social
problems and that you have already started the group formation process.
Moreover, I hope that you found the feedback that you have received as part of
the peer evaluation exam useful.
But most importantly,
I hope that you found the first taste of group work interesting.
And that you've met some people you might be wanting to work with together when
it gets to what's the phase of actually forming social enterprise groups and
starting to write your business plan.
Now in this week what we're going to do is this. We will first of all talk about
the optional case assignment of last week, the comparison of UnLtd and Ashoka.
As always, we will start with a short discussion of our students
where they look at these two organizations and evaluate them.
Next, I will give you an overview of how those two organizations actually
could be complementary to each other.
Following our discussion of the case assignment,
we will then turn to our excellent guest speakers this week,
who will deepen our understanding of what it takes to be a social entrepreneur.
But first let's have a look at what the CBS students are saying
about how they perceive UnLtd and Ashoka.
>> I must admit that I really fell for the whole Ashoka model.
I do like that we pick a project and then you really focus on making this worldwide.
I like that the impact or the possibility of the impact is so large.
>> But what does that say about the individual then?
That's why I like UnLtd,
I like the idea that they're saying: everybody can be a social entrepreneur.
>> And for me, it's very positive that you want to see small projects grow.
I like that part, but
I'm not sure that I would agree in saying that everyone is a social entrepreneur.
There might be someone with a social purpose or a great idea and
I love that part, but we're back to the whole definition question.
Where a social entrepreneur for me is someone who really has this innovative way,
who can create large impact and it's scalable as well.
>> But I mean as much as I appreciate what you're saying, that's a bit like saying
why should I bother to turn my lights off when I leave the room?
Because it's all down to the big corporations,
it's only China actually, that has any impact.
So us little individuals, [SOUND] doesn't matter.
>> I don't agree on the impact part,
because of course you will have an impact if you do a local soccer match,
that will have an impact in your local area and your community.
But if you see the context in itself and I do appreciate these projects and
they're important, but I do believe it's very important to put a lot of money into
those who really have some projects that can really create large scale.
I'm not saying that one is without the other, so.
>> Yeah, but I mean, I do still think that somehow it must start from an individual.
I mean, if you take any village and say, well, let's get everyone in the village,
one individual, every little individual in the village does something.
Well, I think that's gotta have an impact, doesn't it?
>> But maybe it would be a bigger impact if you give that one person who
actually knows how to tunnel or funnel this money and get something out of it.
So how do you measure difference,
because some might just go out and spend the money on something stupid.
Whereas, one person could have used all the money to do something really great.
>> Well, I suppose I have to believe that
somehow the individual social entrepreneur's the most important.
Otherwise, it makes my project a little redundant, [LAUGH] so.
>> Well, I guess by now you've realized that our assignment
question was a little bit unfair.
Actually, both Ashoka and
UnLtd contribute to the development of social entrepreneurs.
However, there are differences in their approaches that are worthwhile looking at.
Ashoka assumes that social entrepreneurs are rare,
they have unique traits only they possess.
Ashoka identifies social entrepreneurs that are successful and
helps them reach the next level.
UnLtd, on the other hand, has a quite different approach.
They believe that there are many social entrepreneurs out there.
Basically, everybody who wants to
can become a social entrepreneur by starting a project.
They start from the first steps by motivating people
to launch themselves into a social entrepreneurial activity.
Actually, over time, these two organizations feed into each other.
Every year several hundred people in the United Kingdom
receive the Do It Awards, which launch them on a social enterprise project.
Out of those, probably only a couple of dozen will actually make it
to the next level of the Build It Awards.
And eventually, there's probably just going to be five or
six of those projects that will still be around after five years,
to receive the Fast Growth Support that Unlimited provides.
Out of these, perhaps only one will eventually make it to a level
where Ashoka would consider them to be social entrepreneurs.
So what makes people become social entrepreneurs?
Johanna Mair and Ernesto Noboa have suggested a model that explains under
which conditions people will actually start a social entrepreneurial project.
They argue that people need two things: perceived desirability,
a wish to be active as a social entrepreneur, and perceived feasibility,
a belief that it is possible to act upon their intentions.
They go on by developing this model as follows.
Perceived desirability is based on the presence of empathy.
That means that social entrepreneurs have empathy for
disadvantaged and disenfranchised people.
Secondly, they argue that social entrepreneurs have a strong moral sense.
They feel morally obliged to help disenfranchised people.
If those two variables are present,
then social entrepreneurs will feel a desire to start a project.
However, social entrepreneurs also need to feel that it is feasible
to start a social entrepreneurial project.
This requires, first of all, a strong sense of self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is an academic term describing the belief
that I myself am capable of achieving the goals that I set myself.
In the context of social entrepreneurship, we can ask the question,
do you believe that individuals can make social change happen?
Do you believe that everybody can contribute to social change?
If the answers to these questions are yes, you possess a high level of self-efficacy.
The second part of perceived feasibility refers to the expected social support.
Do you believe that you would get financial support if you started a social enterprise?
Will you be backed up by other people?
If the answer to this question is yes,
then you have a high level of perceived social support.
In sum, according to Mair and Noboa,
social entrepreneurs have a high level of empathy, a moral commitment,
a high level of self-efficacy, and they perceive social support.
If these four variables are present, the likelihood that people will engage
in social entrepreneurial activity are higher.
Now, if we look at the activities of both Ashoka and UnLtd,
we find that they are active at all four levels.
Ashoka today is engaging with
secondary schools to train young children in empathy.
They also help engage with people to build their self-efficacy.
And finally, both organizations provide financial support and networks
that increase the level of perceived social support for their activities.
So we have just talked about the false dichotomy between UnLtd and Ashoka,
discussing that actually both organizations work together,
leading towards the kind of Ashoka fellows that we've heard talked about last week.
I'm now once again here with Åsa and Rebecca, and
I would like to ask you to talk a little bit more about the vision for Ashoka.
And actually,
I think your focus has shifted towards everybody being a changemaker.
Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
>> I think you sort of framed it perfectly in a sense,
you talked about this being a false dichotomy and that's how we view it.
And also I think how our fellows have understood and viewed it for
a long time, because if we think back to Jeroo and if we also look at other fellows.
Actually, the way they solve social problem
is that they are living the vision of everyone being a changemaker.
Think about Jeroo and the children.
She empowered them to pick up the phone and help other children,
that's being a changemaker.
So I think a lot of our fellows are both sort of
using this vision in their daily work to solve social problems.
They couldn't do it alone,
if we think 91% of the fellows have their ideas replicated, so we can't do it alone.
So I think this is just, to them,
obvious that this is the vision you have to live in order to solve social problems.
And I think you could also view it a little bit as an end in itself.
It's a different kind of world where people are empowered and feel that
they have the confidence to make change, to solve social problems around them.
>> Yeah, so I think that's very much it.
I think what we've seen from our fellows, electing 3,000 fellows around the world,
and working with a lot of different types of leaders and changemakers,
we see patterns and trends coming up.
And this is really interesting because it's actually where our vision stems from,
which is from our fellows.
We've realized that the greatest success factor of our fellows is the ability
to create other changemakers around them who take on that vision as their own.
It's not only about Jeroo with the vision, for example,
it's about the community of changemakers,
of millions of children around her that see that vision as their own as well.
So that's a key learning for Ashoka over the years, beginning from when we started
the field of social entrepreneurship in the early 1980s until where we are now,
which is an evolved mission and an evolved sense of scope in the sense that
we're working towards this goal of a world where everyone is a changemaker.
Now what does that mean on a more practical level?
We know that we want to build these skills in people around the world, freedom and
confidence, in order to create change and be problem solvers and
be empathetic leaders.
We also know that it requires a certain set of skills which are very much
our priority.
So in order to build those skills of changemaking in people around the world,
we work with many different programs and initiatives.
In particular, we're focused on young people.
We know that it begins when you are young, the sense of drive and
the sense of confidence in building something new.
So in the case of Jeroo,
working with young people, that affects them in a deep way for the future.
So at Ashoka, we now run various different programs and initiatives.
Perhaps you've heard of Ashoka U, which is a global program of Ashoka that
works to connect universities around the world that are innovative and
creative and thinking about the future of education.
Not as something static, but as something that must change in this constantly and
evolution.
So that's the one initiative of Ashoka working with higher education.
In addition to that, we are now working with a program called Changemaker Schools,
which is an initiative to actually connect not only the university system but also
primary and secondary schools around the world that have very innovative practices,
are entrepreneurial in the way they teach and see connections between members and
teachers within the school and unique and innovative ways.
So those are two examples of how we're working with young people.
We also run a program globally called Youth Venture,
which works with small fellowships and experiences for young changemakers to
help them work towards their goals as changemakers as well.
So you can see from this mix, not only are we working with young people,
we've made this bridge even further to working with businesses and
with companies to actually bring together and enable these different types of
changemakers from all different sectors within society to connect us over one core
goal which is actually to recognize that the world is constantly changing.
And we need to build these skills of changemaking in people so
that we can reach a better and even more innovative future.
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