[Commerce Class Notes] on Meaning and Concept Social Entrepreneurship Pdf for Exam

Social Entrepreneurs are individuals who are willing to create positive changes in society through their innovative ideas and efforts. They run their business or organization to achieve their goals by helping society. Their motto to start a business venture is primarily to help society and have no great intention of making personal profits. Their success is not always measured in terms of profit alone. A small change in the society out of their efforts is a success too. Social entrepreneurship is also referred to as altruistic entrepreneurship –which translates to selfless concern for the well-being of others.

There are many environmental and social problems out there and social entrepreneurs identify those problems and come up with innovative ways, and establish or adopt a business model around it. By presenting user-friendly and adaptable ideas to the local people, social entrepreneurs are generally looked up to as leaders or role models for driving philanthropic projects and bringing a large group of people to believe in their initiative. In the recent past, there have been many social entrepreneurs or philanthropists who have made immense success and proven to the public that not all needs of society are to be solved by the Government. Any person with a vision and the ability to bring change can do it.

Below are a Few Examples of Leading Social Entrepreneurs

• Vinoba Bhave (India)  was the leader and founder of the Land Gift Movement. He led to the redistribution of around 7,000,000 acres of land that later on helped the landless and untouchables of India.

• Dr. Maria Montessori (Italy) – The Montessori approach to early childhood education was developed by her.

• Elon Musk, Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX caused Musk to become an explorer of social entrepreneurship in the modern era, as he pursued to create solutions that are accessible to renewable energy and push the bounds on space exploration for the human race.

Social entrepreneurship has similarities and distinctions when compared to the standard definition of entrepreneurship

Importance of Social Entrepreneurs

Social Impact and Inspiration: the origination of a social enterprise is an existing gap or problem that an individual identifies and has a solution for. Social entrepreneurs’ works tackle the existing problem of society, they do not intend to create legacies and are an inspiration to society.

Make the World a Better Place: Social entrepreneurs are obsessed and extremely passionate about the initiative and work towards the goal against all odds, and can go to any extent to see that society is problem-free. It is the social entrepreneurs who can bring drastic changes to culture, business, and economy while they make a living out of it.

Generation of Social Capital: One of the most important values and powerful influences created by Social entrepreneurs is the equation established by social groups through interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, and a shared understanding in their network that helps people to ‘get by, accept and get ahead’ with changes.

Factors the Strengthen Social Entrepreneurship

How the Project Contributes to the Economy: Having known social entrepreneurship is for the society or environment, it also means there is or has been a demand for the product or service. Most entrepreneurial initiatives contribute to the economy, by creating job opportunities and wealth. The social enterprise thus established must aim at generating enough wealth that can contribute to society. 

Responsibility Towards Society and Environment: The primary intention of social enterprise is to identify gaps in the environment and society that are not working efficiently and create a social value out of those. Aimed at bringing in a change and something new to solve a certain problem, these objectives can vary from industries, health services, education, energy-saving, etc. A lot of corporate entities form a small trust to implement these objects in the form of Customer Social Responsibility (CSR)  projects. 

Effective Profit Utilization: As discussed, earlier social entrepreneurs are not aimed at making personal profits, their profits are often re-invested in the business to achieve the goal, personal profits are hence supervised and are limited. However, depending upon the status of the project, the entrepreneur can decide how much is to be reinvested to achieve the goal.

Efficiently Managed: Unlike the standard entrepreneurship framework, social entrepreneurship can involve a group of people working together with the same intention of bringing a change to society. Hence, the decision-making, execution of tasks, etc. are all shared and are done with the active participation of all experts at different levels. Here, making use of participation efficiently is the key.

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship has been the booming and most pursued carrier option in recent times. Many top college graduates have set up their own companies and thrived excellently in their respective domains. Entrepreneurs lookup for a gap in the demand and supply chain in the market and using their agencies of creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness they find a solution in the form of a product or service that will fill in the gap. 

Thus, they bring in the market something that is in great demand already. This way they are able to generate a good amount of sales and hence earn a good profit as well. Entrepreneurship is mostly pursued as a career option because it gives the liberty of being your own boss and also to exercise your creativity and innovativeness with no restrictions. Once launched well and settled up, it brings up a lot of opportunities for expansion and collaboration. The profit one generates is also better than what one may have got while doing a job. 

More about Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is the one branch of this tree that is not much concerned with the money or royalties that they may avail after being an entrepreneur. Social entrepreneurs are more concerned with the betterment of society and work in the direction accordingly, though they also look for profit margins, it is very marginal and their main aim is the enhancement of socio-economic conditions. They may or may not already have a good amount of wealth. If they don’t, they mainly try to launch that company or industry which will lead to the development of jobs, create a money flow in the local economy and utilize the skills of the local artisans. This way they ensure that the local skill potential is utilized and also that profit is generated. On the other hand, if they have a good amount of wealth they will try to manage the resources properly and develop employment opportunities for the local population without caring much about their own profit. 

Social entrepreneurship has become a very critical driving force in the national and local economies of the country. This type of entrepreneurship has been incorporated into the policies of govt as well and govt has subsidized many such establishments which pursue the development of the local economy. 

Social entrepreneurship has been also admired by the local populations as well because these ventures create a great positive impact regarding enhancing the lives of local people in terms of monetary security and job creation.