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The Idea of Social Entrepreneurship
In the "shifting involvements" between private and public approaches to governance and economic management, nations have tried different versions of capitalism and different versions of socialism, debated market failures and government failures, coming sooner or later to some form of mixed economies. Attention has lately focused on the third sector, the nonprofit/NGO sector. The public, private, and the NGO sectors thus constitute the institutional map within which policy makers and others are looking to solve mundane as well as urgent social problems. We wish to draw attention to a "fourth" sector, the social enterprise sector, which happens to be situated within the overlap or the shared space among the three traditional sectors mentioned above. Efforts to enlarge that sector, to support social enterprises and social entrepreneurs in that sector, must be based on a theory about who a social entrepreneur is or what social enterprise management is. Therefore, we need new analytical points of entry in forging new institutional relationships among the different sectors.
The urgency of finding new analytical starting points is captured by the sudden popularity of the term "sustainable development", conceptualized as a way of combining economic growth with equity in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. For big international institutions as well as community organizations, "sustainable development" has become a commonplace as well as a critical word. Establishing the School for Advancement of Social Enterprise Management (The School) in India is our attempt to take that debate ahead. To professionalize the learning process at The School, we propose to offer the diploma called Masters in Social Enterprise Management (M-SEM). It will be like an MBA for the social sector. We begin that process, however, by defining the idea of a social entrepreneur.
The answer to the question--Who is a social entrepreneur?--is based on a theory of social entrepreneurship I am developing, and is founded on the fundamental philosophical premise that people have a natural propensity to do socially useful things as well act in their own self-interest. In that sense, the ideal social entrepreneur is contrasted with well-known stereotypes of the businessman, the entrepreneur, and the activist. For the ideal social entrepreneur (a state of being, as difficult to achieve as the other three ideal states), the distinction between private and social is totally non-existent. As a result, any self-interested action is theoretically, or of necessity, an altruistic act as well. The ideal social entrepreneur realizes the potential of two propensities with which every person is naturally endowed--the propensity to act in self-interest and the propensity to do socially useful things.
The Project
Based on a theory of social enterprise management combining self-interest with altruism, the proposed School for Advancement of Social Enterprise Management attempts to harness and professionalize the impulse to do socially useful things. It weaves that humanistic impulse with an equally humanistic desire to be profitable and effective. Through its curriculum design (covering Governance; Urban Environment & Sustaianable Development; and Livelihood & Entrepreneurship), The School aims to grant an MBA-like diploma for the social sector, giving legitimacy to a learning and creative process that is rigorous and yet artistic, and to a way of doing socially-minded business that is anchored in local cultural institutions and practices and yet consistent with the process of modernization. A two/four-weeks long short-term training program (beginning in January 2001 in Governance and Leadership) launches the project and complements the two-year master's program, and is aimed at professionals from the public and nonprofit sectors. The overarching objective of teaching at The School is to reinforce a set of values to guide trainees and students in their professions, and to impart skills to make them more persuasive, expressive, creative, and effective. Through institutional design, The School aims to broaden the career path of its trainees and students, and help lay the infrastructure required for the spread of social enterprise management. The School attempts to do this by: (i) designing a tight relationship among trainees, faculty members, and students through curriculum design and day-to-day relationships; (ii) recommending deserving students from the graduating class for jobs with senior professionals who have undergone the short-term training at The School; and (iii) by involving students, during their two-year stay, in actual projects and initiatives coming out of the Social Enterprise Education Trust. This Trust, the first initiative of which is the proposed School for Advancement of Social Enterprise Management, was established legally in New Delhi on December 21, 1999. The registered office of the Trust is at the Akshara Theater in New Delhi, India.
For the initial training program in Governance and Leadership, discussions are being held with the Foundation of Dr. Karan Singh (Member of Parliament and ex-Ambassador to the U.S.) in New Delhi for joint/collaborative work. This initial training program will be expanded gradually to cover the other two thematic areas: Urban environment & Sustainable development, and Livelihood & Entrepreneurship. Once the campus of The School is constructed, the two-year Master's program in Social Enterprise Management will be organized in three pedagogical arenas, called the SHELL, the STAGE, and the STUDIO.
Management teaching cases will be used at the SHELL to teach the nuts-and-bolts of the three thematic areas, and to impart certain crosscutting analytical skills. For example, in the theoretical section on social entrepreneurship mentioned earlier, I had posited four kinds of individuals: the businessman, the entrepreneur, the activist, and the social entrepreneur. Financial skills, therefore, will be taught by showing how these different types of individuals might ideally go about raising funds for their enterprises. Indicators of Quality will constitute another core program at the SHELL: ways will be taught to enhance "bottom-line" not necessarily by cutting costs, but by bringing about improvements in quality-of-product and quality-of-life indicators--techniques that will involve professionals from many walks of life, including artists and the like. Imparting analytical skills such as these will further distinguish The School's curriculum from those at business management schools.
Based on cases and material taught and developed at the SHELL, the STAGE becomes the arena where trainees and students learn how to express their ideas in a persuasive way. We will therefore employ witers and orators to sharpen rhetorical skills, and allow the systematic participation of particular performing artists and social groups whose eccentric exuberance is valued highly. Rhetorical skills in the field of social enterprise management will also be taught by examining "material" such as cultural/religious texts, commonsense aphorisms, adages, and proverbs. Creativity-enhancing techniques are being considered to complement the training in the STAGE.
The STUDIO, the third pillar of the curriculum, is where students take to the drawing board their interests and passions concerning a particular idea or a concrete product (that helped them gain admission to The School in the first place). Over the two years, faculty members at the STUDIO help students to reinterpret those ideas, develop them creatively through techniques refined at the SHELL and the STAGE, and formulate a business plan and marketing strategy to actually make that a reality when they step out of The School to set up independent nonprofit organizations and social enterprises, or to pursue jobs in the public and nonprofit sectors. The final product developed at the STUDIO becomes a student's Master's Thesis. In order to strengthen job prospects of The School's graduates, as mentioned earlier, we hope to involve students in projects and initiatives developed through the Social Enterprise Education Trust (Regd.), the parent institution of The School. And top half of the graduating class will also be recommended for jobs to the senior-level professionals who have undergone training at The School.
The School will develop ways to help faculty members with their own research. In that spirit, faculty members are encouraged to become students all over again by enrolling in the short-term program and its SHELL-STAGE-STUDIO component, and completing at their own pace. This will also allow them to carry out independent research at The School. Through such "inter-generational" interaction between students and faculty, the significance of the three intersecting circles in The School's logo--symbolizing the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, with the social enterprise sector at the center; and the three pillars of the curriculum--now alludes to coming together of age, youth, and childhood as well.
Contact:
Rajesh Pradhan
Chairman & Academic Director
Social Enterprise Education Trust
41 Clive Street
Jamaica Plain (Boston)
MA 02130, USA
Tel: (617)5221218
Fax: (617)5225227
E-mail: rgpradhan@aol.com
Registered Office of the Social Enterprise Education Trust:
Akshara Theater
11-B Baba Kharak Singh Marg
New Delhi 110001
India
Tel: (11)3732083
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