In a recent article in the 'Standford Social Innovation Review' an undergrad student wrote about his views on the term 'social entrepreneurship' and how this term applies to current students. He posits that 'social entrepreneurship' has no real meaning and is a buzzword and that the term "facilitates obfuscation and equivocation." He seemed to be very cynical of people who called themselves social entrepreneurs as people that take advantage of the term to attain funding and recognition and such.
I understand the term is broad, but what is wrong with that? People have been doing work in social entrepreneurship for years, branching from the for-profit model, with a social impact as their goal. In the tagline, the author writes "Much good can be done under the guise of “social entrepreneurship,” but that doesn’t excuse our collective failure to acknowledge its limitations." but I didn't feel like he listed these limitations in his piece. I felt as if his whole argument revolved around the following statement
"Our society prizes the traditional form of entrepreneurship and respects its practitioners in a way that our society doesn’t necessarily support advocates of social change. In using the term “social entrepreneurship,” those who use it attempt to deemphasize the “social” component in favor of the more accepted “entrepreneurship” component, signaling that they share mainstream values. "
Although, I don't agree with this. I feel the author is too cynical in his views of social entrepreneurs. Though it may seem altruistic, I do believe their are people in the social entrepreneurship field with good intentions. Social entrepreneurship is really about solving problems that increase people livelihoods and it takes a special type of person to do that. I feel the author has a very narrow view in the capacity he has seen social entrepreneurs. Again with me being altruistic, I really feel when it comes to social entrepreneurship 'social' is the term people take pride in. The idea that rather then creating a product or service that serves the status quo, one that disrupts it.
This article started with the author questioning the definition of 'social entrepreneurship.' “society’s change agents: creators of innovations that disrupt the status quo and transform our world for the better.” While making statement such has "transforms our world for the better" is I agree equivocal, has the autor puts forward, when juxtaposing this definition next to general entrepreneurship, it subsets the term making the mission more targeted.
But this is just my opinion. Here is a link to the article.
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