Jul 15th, 2008
(Social) Enterprise
This page is titled (Social) Enterprise because while most of the resources are on social enterprise, there are a few that are on enterprise alone. The term “social enterprise” has many definitions, and interpreted broadly, encompasses a wide range of organizations. There are many articles written on social enterprise, of which just a sampling is provided here.
I have suggested some questions below to start you off thinking about social enterprise as you browse through these pages and the related articles. The questions start off narrow, but rapidly move on to larger issues. The reason behind the focus on larger issues is to get you quickly thinking about the world of social enterprise beyond Villgro.
1. One of the main elements of definitions of social enterprises are that they are enterprises with social objectives. To what extent can existing entrepreneurs be encouraged to adopt social objectives by organizations like Villgro? If we think of students as potential entrepreneurs, to what extent can the educational system encourage them to adopt social objectives?
2. What is the Indian government’s rationale for promoting entrepreneurship? Can the same rationale be extended to social entrepreneurship? Are there certain kinds of social enterprises that the government is more likely to support than others?
3. Can government departments be persuaded to procure goods from social enterprises, either for their own use or for further distribution? What might be some effective strategies to do this?
4. Several mapping exercises of social enterprises have been carried out, particularly in different regions in the U.K. Mapping could also be used as a tool to see whether entrepreneurial activity is more concentrated in some ethnic communities than in others. Once this is done, we could ask whether different ethnic communities adopt different entrepreneurial strategies. What could we learn from this?
5. Just as comparisons have been made of levels of entrepreneurship in different parts of the world, can we envision a study comparing levels of social entrepreneurship? Where would you expect to find the highest levels? The lowest? Why?
6. Where in the world do you think social entrepreneurship is most needed? Least needed? Why?
Read a little more about the “Who,” “What,” and “Why” of social enterprise below.
