Beyond Nongovernmental Development Action into Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract

This article presents a reflective perspective on the scope that social entrepreneurship offers to non-governmental development work in the Indian context. Beginning with the early corporate efforts to do good to society, the article outlines the history of nongovernmental action through its charity, community welfare, developmental and mobilisational and ‘post-developmentalist neo-liberal political economy’ phases. It then reviews the concept of social entrepreneurship as it has developed in Western liberal democracies where a rethinking of the welfare state has taken place. While the ideology of social entrepreneurship seems to reside naturally in the current phase, only some of its aspects seem to offer growth trajectories for non-governmental work in the near future. Though the foundations and trusts that the early business entrepreneurs established did provide the initial stratum for future non-governmental work, in recent times the charitable-philanthropic orientation of business has evolved into a socially entrepreneurial form, often involving partnerships with the third sector. For the mix of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), especially those which have political goals like empowerment and social justice, social entrepreneurship, in its strict form, seems to have little to offer. But key features of the social entrepreneurial process, namely socially entrepreneurial behaviour, and more importantly social innovation—new ways of solving social problems, resourcefulness, larger scale and wider impact and solutions that are transferable, scalable and cost-effective—are important future directions for all kinds of NGOs, including those whose primary thrust is empowerment and social justice. However, non-governmental organisations need to reaffirm the primacy of the civic in their purpose constantly—aware and positively critical of the ideological undercurrents that influence and shape their responses.

Social Entrepreneurial Intention Formation of Corporate Volunteers

“…There is no uniformly accepted definition on social entrepreneurship (e.g., Bacq and Janssen 2011;Bhowmick 2001;Chand 2009). Building on prior research with a comprehensive view on social entrepreneurship (e.g., Hockerts and W€ ustenhagen 2010;Mair and Mart ı 2006;Miller et al 2012;Tracey and Phillips 2007), we based our understanding of social entrepreneurs on Shane and Venkataraman's (2000) definition of entrepreneurship as a process by which opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited.…”

About social innovation: epistemological, technical, theoretical and methodological considerations on the academic production from 2008 to 2012

“…In this sense, the researchers suggest that there is a better prospect for the adopted of innovation when it comes from organizations. There is an agreement among researchers that the pressure to innovate is an integral part of social organization (BOUCHARD, 2012;CHAND, 2009;LESSEM;SCHIEFFER;MOUSSAVIAN, 2010;MACLEAN;HARVEY;GORDON, 2012;POT, 2011). However, insofar as social innovations are created and accepted they can either be widely disseminated, being transformed, for instance, in a public policy (CONCILIO et al, 2012;POT, 2011;POT;VAAS, 2008), or remain locally incorporated (FERNANDO, 2011).…”

Probing the power of entrepreneurship discourse: an immanent critique

“…Social entrepreneurship envisions the ideal development organization as a combination of market efficiency, business savvy and financial selfsufficiency as requisite ingredients for accomplishing social ends (Chand, 2009). While social enterprises retain many of the positive features related to entrepreneurship such as innovation, performance and a heroic outlook (Dey and Steyaert, 2010), it adds to it an almost evangelical belief that social and economic objectives can be combined in such a way that it produces largely positive, win-win situations (Hervieux, Gedajlovic and Turcotte, 2010; for a worthwhile critique compare with Berglund and Schwartz, 2013).…”