My main area of research interest is social entrepreneurship. In an attempt to keep the readers and myself updated with the field, I am creating an annotated bibliography on social entrepreneurship as a resource that can serve as a starting point for like-minded people. I plan to regularly update this page.
Topic: Definition & Processes of Social Entrepreneurship (SE)
Dees, J. G. (2001). The meaning of “Social Entrepreneurship” [Electronic Version]. Retrieved December 1, 2020 from https://centers.fuqua.duke.edu/case/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2015/03/Article_Dees_MeaningofSocialEntrepreneurship_2001.pdf
Objective: The objective is to provide a clear definition of social entrepreneurship.
Summary: Social entrepreneurship is defined in terms of the role of the social entrepreneur. The social entrepreneur adopts a mission to create and sustain social value, relentlessly pursues the new opportunity once recognized, engages in continuous adaptation, innovation, and learning, overcomes resource limitations, and exhibits accountability toward the constituency served and outcomes created.
Conclusion: The author argues that the set of behaviors that describe SE, that is the temperament and attitude for social problem solving should be rewarded. They have a special talent and are a rare breed of leaders and we should recognize them. The definition preserves the sense of entrepreneurial flair which is very rare according to Schumpeter, Drucker, and Stevenson.
Interpretation: This is a widely recognized definition of SE. This definition is in terms of qualities of a social entrepreneur such as perseverance, creativity or innovative problem solving, commitment, and motivation that helps them to achieve the social mission.
Thompson, J. L. (2002). The world of the social entrepreneur. The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 15(5), 412-431.
Objective: To understand the complexity and diversity of social entrepreneurship along with the sector in which they operate and observe the nature of support available to them.
Summary: The author looks at how social entrepreneurs succeed in achieving the desired social impact given the resource limitation. To understand the complexity of the social sector the author analyzes two successful social entrepreneurs and their qualities. Strong community focus, social ethos, community support, crafting alliances, sharing of knowledge, and community involvement comes out to be the salient features. In terms of government efforts for creating and providing an environment that fosters such social entrepreneurial behaviors, the author concludes that several hurdles remain before such an ambitious goal can be achieved.
Conclusion: The inability of the welfare system to cope up with the increased demand has exposed the increased dependence on the social sector. Thus there is a pressing need to extend every possible support to the existing players as well as the newcomers in the social sector. There is a lot of untapped potential and goodwill in the voluntary sector which can only be realized by recognizing and extending the efforts of nonprofit, voluntary, or community groups, social enterprises, and charities.
Interpretation: With the help of two case studies author highlights important components of social entrepreneurship. Through the case studies, the author emphasizes the contribution of the social sector and the complementary role it plays to the welfare system. He raises important issues of legitimizing the sector and the increasing need to provide a supportive environment to the sector.
Wei-Skillern, J. C., Austin, J. E., Leonard, H. B., & Stevenson, H. H. (2007). Entrepreneurship in the social sector. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication.
Objective: To develop an in-depth understanding of the distinctive characteristics of the social enterprise context and organizations and to develop concepts and tools that will enable social entrepreneurs to pursue social entrepreneurship more strategically.
Summary: The authors broadly define social entrepreneurship and develop a social entrepreneurship framework based on social value creation. The book is disproportionately oriented towards practitioners and professionals and serves as a practical guide for all social entrepreneurs covering topics on how to navigate the philanthropic market, attaining financial sustainability, crafting alliances, achieving and managing growth, and impact assessment of the intervention.
Conclusion: The book spans a range of social enterprise activities, with a primary focus on the social entrepreneurial process. The book introduces and develops the concept of social enterprise organization characterized by social mission (social value creation) and innovative combination of social and commercial approaches.
Interpretation: This is a comprehensive textbook that provides an analytical framework supported through case studies that focus on producing efficient, effective, and sustainable social ventures. Compared to the current state of the academic field of social entrepreneurship as an area for theoretical and empirical research, the authors neither add any new concepts nor extend any concepts in the existing literature.
For the full review of this book, please refer to this post.
Thompson, J., Alvy, G., & Lees, A. (2000). Social entrepreneurship - A new look at the people and the potential. Management Decision, 38(5), 328-338.
Objective: The objective of the paper is to explore the needs for social entrepreneurship, describe contemporary examples, and consider the implications for achieving large scale community participation through SE.
Summary: The role of a social entrepreneur is considered to be complementing the state welfare system. The authors argue that social entrepreneurs are equally important like business entrepreneurs, who identify the opportunity to satisfy unmet social needs. They do this by gathering necessary resources to make a substantial impact and complement the state welfare system. They define social entrepreneurship, look at current developments and initiatives, describe six case studies and draw a set of tentative conclusions about social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship in the context of the British government’s aim of fostering rapid growth in the sector.
Conclusion: Social Entrepreneurship results in several important impacts and outcomes. True entrepreneurs create sizable impacts in the society either in short duration or over the long term. Although more frequent are the smaller micro-entrepreneurs who have limited or localized impact nevertheless the contributions are still are very valuable. Clearly, there is both scope and need for social innovation and SE if the existing social needs of the society are to be met efficiently and efficiently or if new opportunities to create new benefits are to be found.
Interpretation: This is a response paper to Britain’s Prime Minister’s stated ambition of an “explosion of acts of community”. Authors emphasize the point that social entrepreneurs create a positive social value or change over the long run but those whose impact is more localized are still very valuable for the community they serve. Social entrepreneurs are an important resource in realizing the social needs of the community where the welfare system is unable to operate or reach. They complement the system.
Fowler, A. (2000). NGDOs as a moment in history: Beyond aid to social entrepreneurship or civic innovation? Third World Quarterly, 21(4), 637-654.
Objective: To explore the extent to which the SE and civic innovation could provide a new framework for NGDOs (Non-Governmental Development Organization) for social development that goes beyond aid distribution.
Summary: There are three types of social enterprises distinguished by economic activities that themselves produce social benefits. The first type is ‘integrated social entrepreneurship,’ which refers to situations in which economic activities are expressly designed to generate positive social outcomes, and where surplus generating activities simultaneously create social benefits. The second type of social entrepreneurship is where ‘re-interpretation’ is used in situations where existing non-profit capacity is utilized in ways that either reduce costs for the organization or increase and/or diversify the organization’s income streams. The third type of SE is ‘complementary social entrepreneurship,’ referring to non-profit organizations which add a for-profit enterprise division that does not in itself engender a social benefit, but whose profits can be used to offset the costs of the organization’s non-profit social mission. Civic innovation on the other hand focuses on popular engagement rather than enterprise. It takes the dynamic context into account to deal with problems in a new way.
Conclusion: Based on the two primary criteria of self-survival and ability to manage the interplay between the social actions against the demand of market behavior author concluded that SE has a more risk-stricken framework when compared to civic innovation to solve social problems.
Interpretation: According to the author SE framework need to fulfill two goals; social and economic. The author argues that social enterprises are always at risk of dilution of the mission if the economic activity is not primarily generating social benefit as in the third type. While in a civic innovation since the support is from the citizen base, they are more likely to succeed. While this is true it is not always the case that civic engagement and social entrepreneurship are mutually exclusive. In fact, they overlap each other a lot. It can be argued that while it is extremely important for social entrepreneurs to have civic engagement, equally important is the role of social entrepreneur or leadership role for civic innovation. Civic engagement might not produce the desired results or sustain or might not even happen in absence of a good leader. So it is hard to say which framework is riskier.
Alvord, S. H., Brown, L. D., & Letts, C. W. (2004). Social entrepreneurship & societal transformation: An exploratory study. Journal of Replied Behavioral Science, 40(3), 260-282.
Objective: To provide a comparative analysis of 7 cases of social entrepreneurship that have been widely recognized as successful in terms of social, political, and economic change for poor and marginalized groups, generate propositions about core innovations, leadership, and organization, and scaling that produces societal transformation, and discuss the implications for social entrepreneurship practice, research, and continued development.
Summary: The authors point out that the key distinction between social enterprises and traditional enterprises is that while business enterprises strive for viable and growing business organizations, social enterprises work for social, political, and economic transformation. While many different ventures have called themselves social enterprises, the authors are interested in social enterprises that are a catalyst for social transformation (or those that “create innovative solutions to immediate social problems and mobilizes the ideas, capacities, resources, and social arrangements required for sustainable social transformations”) and draw from the areas of development studies, organization theory, and social movement research. They analyze several such enterprises from a variety of contexts (Latin America, Asia, Africa, and North America) concerning their patterns of innovation, characteristics and leadership and organization, paths by which entrepreneurial ventures expand and sustain their impacts and transform larger systems in which they are embedded.
Conclusion: Through their comparative analysis, the authors conclude the following: (1) successful social entrepreneurship initiatives can take at least three forms, including building local capacities to solve problems, providing “packages” needed to solve common problems, and building local movements to deal with other powerful actors; (2) successful social entrepreneurship uses innovations that mobilize existing assets of marginalized groups; (3) successful social entrepreneurship initiatives emphasize systematic learning by individuals and by the organization; (4) successful social entrepreneurship initiatives are often founded by leaders with the capacity to work with and build bridges among very diverse stakeholders; (5) social entrepreneurship initiatives may expand their impacts by either by investing in organization and management systems to support organizational growth to expand their coverage, or in alliance building with clients or other actors that will carry out operational activities; and (6) scaling up and social transformation strategies vary across forms of social entrepreneurship.
Interpretation: The case studies found that contextual circumstances, such as political traditions, encourage or hinder the emergence of different kinds of innovations. These are interesting to examine further.
Catford, J. (1998). Social entrepreneurs are vital for health promotion - but they need supportive environments too. Health Promotion International, 13(2), 95-97.
Objective: To create healthy and sustainable communities is a challenge to our social, economical, and political systems to respond with new, creative, and effective environments that not only support but rewards the change. Available evidence shows that SE offers exciting new ways of realizing the potential of the individual and communities.
Summary: The fast-changing nature of the socio-physical environment in the world required modern age solutions. Simple extrapolation from the past is no longer possible. Communities are gearing the change movement forward rather than relying on statutory services that were meant to support it and the most remarkable part is individuals (social entrepreneurs) are driving all the energy rather than the structure or the system. Communities are engaged in creating social capital and strengthening the potential of groups and individuals to help themselves. SE seems to be rising up to the challenging tasks on hand.
Conclusion: Social entrepreneurs are often at the heart of community-based initiatives, finding innovative solutions to the most difficult socio-environmental problems. They are equally focused on vision and opportunity and possess the ability to empower others in order to create more socially just society. But the greatest challenge for these social entrepreneurs and community workers is formal reorganization and support. With decreasing state welfare capacity, new ways of creating healthy and sustainable communities are required and SE seems to be the solution.
Interpretation: Social entrepreneurs take multidisciplinary, intersectoral, and holistic approach (social-ecological approach) and succeed in the most difficult environments but the biggest challenge is to be formally recognized, valued and supported. An important topic of formal recognition of the social/volunteer sector in the state economy and the contribution of the sector in achieving social goals.
Boschee, J., & McClurg, J. (2003). Toward a better understanding of social entrepreneurship: Some important distinctions. [Electronic Version]. Social Enterprise Alliance. Retrieved December 6, 2020 from https://www.caledonia.org.uk/papers/Social-Entrepreneurship.pdf.
Objective: This article distinguishes between nonprofit organizations and social enterprises.
Summary: The authors stress that the main distinction between nonprofits and social enterprises is the generation of earned revenue from its activities. Unless a nonprofit organization is generating earned revenue from its activities, it is not acting in an entrepreneurial manner. It may be creating new and vibrant programs. However, this is innovation, not entrepreneurship. The authors contend that the distinction is important because only the availability of earned income can allow a nonprofit to become sustainable or self-sufficient without depending on charitable contributions and public sector subsidies. The authors go on to differentiate “entrepreneurship” from “social entrepreneurship”, “sustainability” from “self-sufficiency”, “earned income strategies” from “social purpose business ventures”, and “innovators” from “professional managers” and “entrepreneurs”.
Conclusion: Through making distinctions between various terms in the literature, the authors develop a definition of a social entrepreneur: “A social entrepreneur is any person, in any sector, who uses earned income strategies to pursue a social objective.” They are different from traditional entrepreneurs because: (1) they pursue their social objective directly whereas traditional entrepreneurs do not (i.e., they may simply donate resources to charities/foundations); (2) social entrepreneurs are driven by a “double bottom line” (financial and social returns) whereas traditional entrepreneurs are driven only by profits.
Interpretation: This definition of social entrepreneurship includes activities such as manufacturing assistive devices for the disabled. I do not think such activity constitutes being directly involved in the social mission or objective. Moreover, I object to the basic assumption that only profit-making or earned income activities can be “entrepreneurial”. Other activities (i.e., that of non-profits that do not have earned income) are not entrepreneurial but “innovative”. I think many social entrepreneurial activities may not be innovative. And by the same token, many traditional entrepreneurial activities may not be innovative. What exactly do the authors mean by “innovation” here?
Reis, T. K., & Clohesy, S. J. (1999). Unleashing new resources and entrepreneurship for the common good: A scan, synthesis, and scenario for action: W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Objective: To uncover the emerging needs and opportunities and propose opinions for action related to philanthropy’s changing role in nurturing the common good.
Summary: There has been a surge to use market-based approaches to solve social problems leading to creative ways of using resources for the public good. This new way of thinking has produced three major waves of change; social entrepreneurship, combining business and social responsibility, and philanthropy as social venture or high engagement philanthropy. Innovators are motivated by the outcome of the intervention, adapting market concepts to produce social change, a sense of achievement compared to charity, social responsibility with personal wealth, and sustainability. But to achieve the desired outcome requires extensive knowledge management, human capital management, and identification of the right opportunity. Investing in these areas would be fruitful to accomplish a balance between social impact and sustainability.
Conclusion: The level of creativity and potential for new solutions is vast. There is a need now to identify the benefit and constraints around entrepreneurial collaborations and how to take these initiatives forward to improve the common good.
Interpretation: This report is a good scan of the market and how the new wave of social innovators is operating to keep them sustainable and socially responsible. Having a socially responsible business increasingly becomes popular with entrepreneurs who want to give something back to society. This has also given way to the corporations to increase their goodwill in the market and swaying ethically-minded consumers to buy their products. The noble intentions of doing something good for society are now increasingly being replaced by business strategies to create goodwill for the brand. It becomes extremely hard to distinguish the true social value created by these corporations and whether they should be even considered social enterprise.
Boschee, J. (2007). Social innovation and social enterprise: A powerful combination. Social Enterprise Reporter, March.
Objective: Argues for a more grounded theory approach to the study of social entrepreneurship.
Summary: Presents two competing definitions of social entrepreneurship (that of Dees and the author’s own) and states that some common ground can be found between the two. The author argues that it is at the intersection of social innovation and social enterprises that the issue of sustainability and self-sufficiency (through earned income activities) can be addressed which is at the heart of the difference between the two definitions.
Conclusion: Social entrepreneurship research should be conducted at the interface of the social enterprise school and social innovation school, theory-building should occur from practitioners’ experiences moving ground up, and theoretical frameworks should aim to assist future practitioners.
Interpretation: It is not clear how the fields of social innovation and social enterprises are different and how they intersect and what questions can be addressed at their intersection. Besides, it was not clear how the two definitions, which have very different philosophical orientations, have any common ground.
Zietlow, J., T. (2001). Social entrepreneurship: Managerial, finance, and marketing aspects. Journal of Nonprofits and Public Sector Marketing, 7(12), 19-44.
Objective: This article highlights the importance of earned income among non-profits, non-governmental organizations, and social enterprises. With increasing competition among nonprofits to attract donors and foundations and fluctuation in donations received it is extremely difficult for nonprofits to sustain without earned income.
Summary: Due to decreased donations, grants, and contract revenues, the author urges all nonprofits to attain financial sustainability through adopting business-like approaches. He outlines possible strategies for nonprofits in the marketing, finance and managerial issues from the current available literature on SE. Benefits of long-term financial planning, liquidity management, and performance management are demonstrated.
Conclusion: As nonprofits engage in fee-based activities they are expected to benefits over time. Increased marketing emphasis, developing marketing capacity, split marketing focus for target population and donors, and attaining greater market mix variables helps to focus on producing better results. More academic research is required to understand any potential flaws of adapting such strategies that might lead to possible mission drift, unsupportive organizational culture, and/or potential client and donor estrangement.
Interpretation: There are substantial benefits over short term and long term for a nonprofit organization to be financially self-sufficient. Fluctuations in the philanthropic market may compromise the social mission of the organization. Thinking more strategically with a business mind can help achieve mission objectives better over time. But careful considerations are required before such strategies could be adopted so that the goals of the nonprofits are not compromised.
Financial sustainability of Social Entrepreneurial Ventures (SEVs)
Schuyler, G. (1998). Social entrepreneurship: Profit as a means, not an end. Digest, 98(7).
Objective: The objective of this article is to highlight the motive of the organization to qualify for being a social enterprise.
Summary: Nonprofits are seen as a growing source of solutions to the current socio-environmental problems of our times. Increased attention is being paid to those individuals who have demonstrated the vision for social change and have been able to find resources to support their mission. The article defined SE, outlines qualities of a social entrepreneur and differentiates between for-profit and non-profits. The qualities of a nonprofit organization that differ from for-profits are the strength of collective wisdom and experiences, long term focus, mission relatedness, treating profit as means rather than the end, and reinvesting any financial surpluses on further social, environmental, or cultural objectives.
Conclusion: Social entrepreneurs are those individuals who exhibit all the skills of a successful business entrepreneur as well as a powerful desire for social change. The mission is social good and not personal or stakeholders’ wealth through profits. Skills such as candor, passion, clarity of mission, ethical fiber, commitment, and ability to improvise helps social entrepreneurs to overcome the nonprofit mentality and achieve success in addressing difficult social problems.
Interpretation: Excellent paper that will be extremely helpful while developing my own typology and definition of SE.
Massarsky, C. W., & Beinhacher, S. L. (2002). Enterprising nonprofits: Revenue generation in the nonprofit sector [Electronic Version]. Yale School of Management and the Goldman Sachs Foundation. Retrieved December 6, 2020 from https://community-wealth.org/sites/clone.community-wealth.org/files/downloads/paper-massarsky.pdf.
Objective: Intending to support the efforts of Non-Profits to generate revenue to support their social mission by developing well-defined criteria, standards, and strategies for achieving their social and financial goals, this paper investigates the activities and experiences of the non-profit sector through quantitative and qualitative methods.
Summary: Data on a variety of aspects of nonprofits were reported, such as type of non-profit, number of years of operation, whether it is earned income venture and type of earned income (product, cause, or service related), number of employees and employee status (full-time vs. part-time), annual budget size, the annual surplus generated (if any), whether they see themselves as entrepreneurial or not, role of top management, and financing level. The analyses find that moving toward self-sufficiency is the primary motivation for nonprofits to move toward revenue generation and diversification or profit-making ventures. Other significant motivations include: increasing the social impact of their venture, ability to provide employment, training, and services, attract donors and retain staff, and moving their venture to the next stage (i.e., growth and replication). Interestingly, nonprofit organizations do not apply standard business protocols for initiating a business venture and only half (55 percent) of the organizations operating ventures have written a business plan. Yet, those organizations that had a business report that it had a positive impact on the social mission of the venture.
Conclusion: The authors conclude that that sound business planning has a significant impact on the success of a venture. Business planning assistance, in the form of targeted business analysis, market research, and strategic planning, could be a valuable resource for nonprofits.
Interpretation: Given that some revenue generation can be beneficial to nonprofits (e.g., increase social impact, sustainability, and self-sufficiency), the question this research raises is how can such “business planning” capacities be provided to nonprofits and social entrepreneurial organizations since these organizations vary widely in terms of their missions. Since the primary motive of such organizations is not profit, how can such business planning strategies be tailored to fit their unique needs and mission?
Dees, J. G. (1998). Enterprising nonprofits: What do you do when traditional sources of funding fall short? Harvard Business Review, 76(1), 55-67.
Objective: The article lays out guidelines on what nonprofits can do when traditional sources of funding dry up.
Summary: Nonprofits are increasingly looking for commercial ways to raise more funds because of the raising costs, more competition for fewer donations and grants, and increased rivalry from for-profit companies entering the social sector. There is little choice available for nonprofits in such scenarios and even though the dangers of commercialization can potentially dilute the social mission, financial sustainability is becoming increasingly important. Besides strategies such as earned income from third-party payer with a vested interest such as government and corporation, and earned income from advertisements and endorsements, nonprofits should also look at philanthropic support in form of cash donations, in-kind donations, and volunteer labor, and at the least should try to have partial self-sufficiency in terms of cash flow and working capital to sustain themselves. Another strategy that might be of help is to have earned incomes from activities not related directly or indirectly to the social mission.
Conclusion: Thoughtful innovation in the social sector is essential if organizations are to leverage limited philanthropic resources. Nonprofits can benefit from finding effective ways to harness commercial force without having their mission compromised. Strategic and structural innovations should focus on improving mission-related performance. Social entrepreneurs should not focus on commercial approaches alone but should explore all strategic options along the social enterprise spectrum including their ability to use social causes to tap into philanthropic motivations.
Interpretation: Self-sufficiency is increasingly becoming important and the strategies listed are extremely helpful. Having a commercial approach can not only help in attaining financing independence but also can increase the overall social impact. Erosion of social mission can become a major concern if social entrepreneurs are not careful in applying business-like strategies.
Corcoran, E. (2002). The dual bottom line. Forbes.com, November
Objective: Describes several examples of venture capitalists that have invested in what is called “good works” (or those ventures that have employed the “dual bottom line” philosophy).
Summary: Similar to traditional venture capitalists, “good works” venture capitalists look for and invest in viable businesses with corresponding financial rewards. However, the difference is that they are guided by the belief that making profits is the best approach to charitable works. They have equity stakes in companies that improve the lives of people in low-income neighborhoods by offering training, jobs, and benefits. The paper describes the investments of and challenges faced by venture capitalists such as Silicon Valley Community Ventures and New York City based Community Development Venture Capital Alliance.
Conclusion: These types of venture capitalists have tested the idea of whether capital and knowledgeable and experienced entrepreneurs could develop businesses in low-income areas and whether such an investments would be worthwhile and have found that they can be.
Interpretation: Although profit is still the bottom line for such venture capitalists, it provides some interesting examples of ventures that have promoted local job creation and employment that could be investigated further.
Foster, W., & Bradach, J. (2005). Should nonprofits seek profits? Harvard Business Review, 83(2), 92-100.
Objective: Takes a close and critical look at earned income activities of nonprofit organizations and analyses the viability of such activities.
Summary: The authors note that nonprofit organizations are often compelled by their stakeholders and pressured by funders to launch earned income ventures to look more entrepreneurial, disciplined, innovative, and business-like. It is often argued that earned income ventures can ensure the long-term sustainability of nonprofit organizations. In their analysis of several examples of ventures, however, the authors find that earned income accounts for only a small proportion of funding in most nonprofit domains and few of the ventures that have been launched actually make money. Further, the potential financial returns of such ventures are often exaggerated, and the challenges of running a successful business are often discounted. The challenges that nonprofits face in managing such business ventures include conflict priorities, lack of business perspective, dealing with indirect customers, and fulfilling their commitment to philanthropic foundations that provide funding for such earned income initiatives.
Conclusion: Commercial ventures can distract and in some cases subvert managers of nonprofits from their core social missions. Unrealistic expectations from managers of nonprofit organizations have been found to distort managerial decisions, waste resources, and left important social needs unmet.
Interpretation: An excellent critical analysis of the experiences and challenges faced by nonprofits with earned-income activities.
Boschee, J. (2008). A key lesson business can teach charities. Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Objective: To provide a brief history of the emergence of social enterprises in the US and elucidate the key positive and negative lessons that nonprofits can learn from profit-making businesses.
Summary: The author asserts that many nonprofits are skeptical about making profits while delivering social services considering it dangerous and unethical. To dispel such doubts among nonprofits, he illuminates the fact the first “social enterprise” was created in 1967 by Bill Norris, the owner of a Fortune 100 company called Control Data Enterprise that built plants in inner cities and rural communities to revitalize urban and rural neighborhoods, incubate small businesses, promote alternative energy sources, create jobs, deliver education, and respond to the unmet needs of these communities while being a profitable business venture. While for-profit businesses have been open to social entrepreneurial activities since the past 40 years, nonprofits have undertaken such profit-making activities only since the mid-1990s. He provides examples of successful nonprofits that operate entirely in the market place (e.g., Delancy Street Foundation) and points out the advantages such social enterprises have reaped owing to their profit-making activities.
Conclusion: Despite these success stories, the author guards against all nonprofits taking up profit-making activities for the following reasons: (1) attempting to operate with two bottom lines is very challenging; (2) lack of skills, resources, and mindset; (3) danger of being lured toward earnings comprising the social mission or tilting too much to the social mission neglecting sustainability. The author concludes that better served by diversifying their revenue to include contributions from private sources and government subsidies, as well as revenue from the sales of products or services.
Interpretation: Provides a concise summary of the history of social enterprises in the US and examples of some successful social enterprises which could be studied in further detail as case studies.
Clohesy, S. (2003). Blurred boundaries and muddled motives: A world of shifting social responsibilities: W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Objective: The paper examines the growing trend of blurring boundaries between the nonprofits and for-profit organizations.
Summary: In recent times nonprofits have come under pressure for their donors to diversify and strengthen their base. However, the fact remains that most nonprofits do not have the expertise to apply business strategies to their earned income ventures. This blurring of the boundaries is driven by increased pressure to demonstrate sustainability and the emergence of a new kind of leadership style. Among the main flashpoints blurring the boundaries are new hybrid organizations, new forms of resource development, funding, and investment, for-profit organizations with a social mission, multi-sectoral partnerships, and new support systems. There is little agreement on whether this blurring is for good or for worse. The author identifies new challenges that social enterprises are rising in understanding the structure, management, operations, and financing.
Conclusion: Blurring of the sectoral boundaries is the fact of time but required a dialogue about the meaning and benefits of the individual engagement for common good. This blurring raises more questions than answers, questions like what is an appropriate balance between efficiency and participation, how will we capitalize social change and social service on large scale while remaining within the nonprofit sector and how can motives for choosing sectoral structure be codified into best practice? A holistic view is required to understand and addressed these challenges.
Interpretation: Defining SE in terms of social value-creating or for-profit organizations with a social mission has its drawbacks. Merely having a social mission is not enough if profit or financial sustainability comes from the erosion of the social mission. Further clarification on what the profits are used for is necessary. Leaving such an open-end will enable many organizations to be called social enterprise even though there might be nothing social about it.
Boschee, J. (1995). Some nonprofits are not only thinking about the unthinkable they’re doing it – running a profit. Across the Board, March.
Objective: To provide a concise categorization of different types of social enterprises and their goals and suggest the implications of profit-making for nonprofit organizations.
Summary: Social enterprises are classified into “affirmative businesses” (that provide jobs, competitive wages, career opportunities, and ownership for disadvantaged groups) and “direct service businesses” (those that provide services to groups in need such as battered women, drug addicts, high-school dropouts, hard-to-place foster children, and people who are terminally ill). These enterprises can be for-profits, nonprofits, freestanding, or subsidiary but they all tackle difficult social problems and they are different from traditional entrepreneurs because they tackle problems already in place rather than something new.
Conclusion: Adopting entrepreneurial strategies enables nonprofit agencies: (1) to analyze each of its programs from the perspectives of both the mission and financial profit; (2) to focus on its most effective and needed programs, a strategy that leads it to dramatically reallocate its resources, to explore uncomfortable tactics such as collaboration with its competitors, and to kill programs that do not succeed; and (3) to eventually become less dependent on government subsidies and corporate and individual philanthropy.
Interpretation: It is unclear whether and how such business worldviews and related strategies into the fundamental ethical orientation and mission of nonprofits. Can there really be a double bottom line? For example, is it ethical to discontinue social programs that are losing money?
Cite this article (APA)
Trivedi, C. (2021, January 26). Annotated bibliography: Social Entrepreneurship. ConceptsHacked. Retrieved from https://conceptshacked.com/annotated-bibliography-social-entrepreneurship/
