Comments on: The social enterpreneurs controversy https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-social-enterpreneurs-controversy/2009/10/29 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:13:29 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 By: Stan R https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-social-enterpreneurs-controversy/2009/10/29/comment-page-1#comment-419355 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:13:29 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=5589#comment-419355 A very poignant article. I’ve been detecting a lot of ripples along these lines. Along with Abhay Agarwal’s observation about what sells, I’m also skeptical that all the money flowing into ventures would still be there for actual BoP. Investors, even with good intentions, are more likely to be trusting similar “elite.” And, many MBAs probably believe their quasi-business acumen can help save the world, and may talk a good game. However, they do not spend enough time learning about actual subjects and building the domain knowledge needed to help see good solutions in a particular domain. They also do not understand or plan for the massive information loss that comes from top-down solutions. They also don’t tend to see that what their company does–or whether their company even survives–is not as important and empowering the BoP to solve problems. It’s just not the mindset taught in an MBA program, as near as I can tell. I’m speculating based on a handful of MBAs I’ve talked to, and curriculums I’ve peeked at. The focus should not be building businesses, the focus should be enabling BoP to solve problems, and assisting them in doing so where and how needed.

There’s another side to the “social enterprise” coin. In the United States, plenty of people are claiming to be social entrepreneurs or have social enterprises with no evidence or action to support that claim. However, no one questions it–that would be impolite. It’s not that all these people are scam artists (some are), it’s just that they find it’s easy to “fudge” it a little.

It’s essentially no different than “greenwashing,” where one claims to be green, or “fair trade,” or some other buzz term that has a slight ring of enviro-social justice. Consumers turn their brains off when seeing these terms, and indeed, they don’t have time to investigate each and every one. It’s no surprise that so many businesses and starting businesses are getting into the action. We should expect this. In a world of competing businesses, businesses gaining an edge by being perceived in a good light–while not changing their bottom line–will out compete businesses that don’t have that edge, everything else equal.

I have still not seen a solid set of principles for social entrepreneurship. The SEA in the US defines a social enterprise as “an organization or venture that advances its primary social or environmental mission using business methods.” That carries no weight at all.

There need to be a tangible principles to actually classify social enterprise, and they most likely need to be written right into the operating agreement, and be actively open with information from the start (“you can check our records if you want” is not good enough.) That may be a really high bar, but honestly, the bar needs to be high, because the term “social enterprise” is becoming increasingly meaningless. Once principles are made by a few brave adopters, I hope we will see something roughly like http://maplight.org/ bringing transparency to companies claiming social enterprise status. It could be a social enterprise in itself. Easier said than done…

]]> By: Abhay Agarwal https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-social-enterpreneurs-controversy/2009/10/29/comment-page-1#comment-419297 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:13:30 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=5589#comment-419297 Based on my analysis of the situation, this can be attributed to an understanding within MBA candidates that traditional value chains and business models do not ‘sell’ anymore. With social enterprises portrayed as the new light at the end of the tunnel, this leaves them with little option but to pursue these programs, without the proper knowledge of what it means to be a struggling citizen of the developing world.

Since most social enterprises are targeting the developing world (either products or services), i think it would be excellent to require social enterprise business school candidates to have real world development experience first. I am calling for a greater integration between students of the fields of development (public health, international development, economic development) with students attemtping to create social enterprises. Extended MBA programs such a 1+1 year studying development or sustainability combined with a year of studying the business side of social enterprises is an ideal solution.

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