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DRAFT

Social entrepreneurs: understanding how a socialentrepreneur has change the world

Introduction

The idea of Social Entrepreneurship has become increasingly popular as social problems in our complex modern society have grown In a way, it is a reaction to the ‘bottom line’ philosophy of modern big business with its emphasis on short-term profit to the detriment of any long-term benefit to society as a whole or the human component of the business itself. SocialEntrepreneurship seeks to harness the practical dynamism of the successful businessman toenrich and help society, especially in countries where the individual is beset with problems of dire poverty and lack of opportunity.While the concept of social entrepreneurship is relatively new, initiatives that employentrepreneurial capacities to solve social problems are not. We have found a variety of initiatives —particularly focused on the problems of poor and marginalized populations—that havetransformed the lives of thousands of people around the world (Alvord et al., 2003)Social entrepreneurs play an important role is societal development. In contrast to traditional “ business” entrepreneurs, they focus primarily on social value creation, namely, the alleviation of social problems such as poverty, hunger, illiteracy, environmental destruction, etc. (Mair and Noboa, 2005).In many ways social entrepreneurs are to the society what business entrepreneurs are to theeconomy, meaning that although they may, like business entrepreneurs, be interested in profit, but their emphasis is on social change.According to Dees (1998) the idea of “social entrepreneurship” has struck a responsive cord. It isa phrase well suited to our times. It combines the passion of a social mission with an image of

business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance,the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley. The time is certainly ripe for entrepreneurial approachesto social problems. Many governmental and philanthropic efforts have fallen far short of our expectations. Major social sector institutions are often viewed as inefficient, ineffective, andunresponsive. Social entrepreneurs are needed to develop new models for a new century.In reflection, the terms

social entrepreneur

and

social entrepreneurship

were first used in theliterature on social change in the 1960 and 1970s. It came into widespread use in the 1980s and1990s, promoted by William Drayton the founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, andothers such as Charles Leadbeater (Wikipedia, 2009) Drayton, founder of the world’s firstorganization to promote social entrepreneurship, ‘Ashoka’, is credited with coining the phrase“Social Entrepreneur”, to describe a person who recognizes logjams in society and finds ways tofree them. This type of person envisages a universal change, and figures out how to heave wholesocieties on to new, rewarding paths. This type of entrepreneur strains and shoves until the job isdone, identifying and solving large-scale social problems. Only an entrepreneur has the visionand determination to complete the huge tasks involved, and social entrepreneurs are agents of fundamental change.

Definition

Whilst social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention, ithas become increasingly difficult to identify who is a social entrepreneur and what he/ she does,resulting in all sorts of activities are now being called social entrepreneurship. To this end therearises a need to clarify the definition of the term, in an effort to simplify the identification of asocial entrepreneur Any definition of social entrepreneurship should reflect the need for a substitute for the marketdiscipline that works for business entrepreneurs. We cannot assume that market discipline willautomatically weed out social ventures that are not effectively and efficiently utilizing resources.(Dees, 1999)For Martin and Osberg (2007) the definition of the term “social entrepreneurship” must start withthe word “entrepreneurship.” The word “social” simply modifies entrepreneurship. If entrepreneurship doesn’t have a clear meaning, then modifying it with social won’t accomplish

much, either. In the end they believe that the critical distinction between entrepreneurship andsocial entrepreneurship lies in the value proposition itself. For the entrepreneur, the value proposition anticipates and is organized to serve markets that can comfortably afford the new product or service, and is thus designed to create financial profit. From the outset, theexpectation is that the entrepreneur and his or her investors will derive some personal financialgain. Profit is sine qua non, essential to any venture’s sustainability and the means to its ultimateend in the form of large-scale market adoption and ultimately a new equilibrium. The socialentrepreneur, however, neither anticipates nor organizes to create substantial financial profit for his or her investors – philanthropic and government organizations for the most part – or for himself or herself. Instead, the social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of large-scale,transformational benefit that accrues either to a significant segment of society or to society atlarge.A broader definition of the term social entrepreneur is given by Wikipedia which defines socialentrepreneurship as the work of a social entrepreneur. In this case a social entrepreneur issomeone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create,and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, social entrepreneurs assess their success in terms of the impactthey have on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizengroups, many work in the private and governmental sectors.Social entrepreneurs are the persons, who aspire to change the world in positive directions. Theyhave belief in their ability to make impact on the world / society by their sustained efforts incertain directions. They build institutions and organizations which espouse certain ideas andmission and try to create an impact on the world in certain positive directions. They establish self sustaining organizations and institutions which can enable us to represent our ideas in concreteshape and enable us to change the world. (Jain, 2008 )According to Zeigler (2009) The social entrepreneurship support network, “Schwab” describesthe social entrepreneur as a “pragmatic visionary who achieves large scale, systemic andsustainable social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorousapplication of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these”.