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From the Guest Editors: Educating Social Entrepreneurs and Social

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Article  in  Academy of Management Learning and Education, The · October 2012

DOI: 10.5465/amle.2012.0224

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姝 Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2012, Vol. 11, No. 3, 319–323. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2012.0224
........................................................................................................................................................................
From the Guest Editors:
Educating Social Entrepreneurs and Social Innovators
Our goal in editing this special issue of AMLE was
to respond to the challenges facing educators
stemming from the dramatically increasing de-
mand for courses that effectively develop social
entrepreneurs and social innovators. Our motiva-
tion was rooted partly in the challenges we our-
selves faced as social entrepreneurship educators.
First and foremost, we have struggled to under-
stand precisely what social entrepreneurs and in-
novators actually do, and therefore, what they
need to know. There is much ambiguity about how
social entrepreneurship differs from traditional no-
tions of entrepreneurship and, similarly, how so-
cial innovation differs from other sorts of innova-
tion. Without a clear idea of what constitutes these
new forms of activity it is difficult if not impossible
to develop appropriate courses and programs.
Second, even once the nature of social entrepre-
neurship and social innovation are clearly under-
stood, the impact on how we design courses and
course materials remains an important challenge
for educators. While there is an emerging body of
teaching material on social entrepreneurship and
social innovation, much of it is fragmented, and so
it is not obvious how best to organize courses and
what to include in terms of course content. Further-
more, some material and approaches from existing
courses might be appropriate, but how should they
be adapted and used? These questions are crucial
for the development of effective educational expe-
riences for budding social entrepreneurs and so-
cial innovators.
In speaking with colleagues at other institutions,
it became clear that many other business school
educators shared our concerns. Based on our own
experiences and the feedback from others, we
therefore decided that a special issue focusing on
the nature of social entrepreneurship and social
innovation, the impact of a clearer understanding
of these ideas for the design of courses and course
material, and reviews of existing material would
be of use to a large and growing group of
educators.
In assembling this collection of papers, we
sought to address all these issues in order to help
business school faculty who teach social entrepre-
neurship and innovation base their decisions
about course design and execution on informed
evidence from experts in the field. We also hope
this special issue will raise awareness of social
319
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entrepreneurship and social innovation through-
out the business school community, and thus en-
courage faculty from all disciplines to consider
incorporating some of the ideas into their teaching.
As various papers in this issue make clear, the
concepts that underpin these subjects have rele-
vance to a wide range of organizational activity in
the private, public, and nonprofit sectors.
WHAT ARE SOCIAL INNOVATION AND
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP?
A critical issue for educators in this area concerns
the nature of social entrepreneurship and its rela-
tionship to social innovation. The term social en-
trepreneurship has been used widely and gained
significant recognition over the past decade.
Tracey and Phillips (2007: 265) noted that “two over-
lapping conceptions of social entrepreneurship
can be identified in the literature.” The first was
concerned with actors that reconfigure resources
in order to achieve some kind of social change or
societal transformation, but who do not necessar-
ily rely on commercial means to do so. The second
was concerned specifically with “enterprise for a
social purpose,” and required social entrepreneurs
“to identify and exploit market opportunities in
order to develop products and services that can be
reinvested in a social project.” More recently,
scholars have sought to draw a distinction be-
tween social innovation and social entrepreneur-
ship (Lawrence, Dover, & Gallagher, in press), with
the former corresponding to Tracey and Phillips’
first mode of social entrepreneurship, and the no-
tion of social entrepreneurship increasingly de-
fined more narrowly along the lines of Tracey and
Phillips’ second mode of social entrepreneurship.
Clearly, the distinctions are ones of emphasis
rather than hard edges. When we speak or think of
social entrepreneurs, we focus on the ways in
which actors leverage market mechanisms to en-
sure the financial sustainability of their efforts to
address a social problem or effect social change
(Tracey, Phillips, & Jarvis, 2011). We also often as-
sociate social entrepreneurs with the formation of
new enterprises, although like entrepreneurship
more broadly, this may represent a typical social
entrepreneur but in no way captures the heteroge-
neous strategies that social entrepreneurs use to
enact their strategies.
320 Academy of Management Learning & Education
When we speak of social innovators, we high-
light both the creation of novel solutions to social
problems and their potentially transformative ef-
fects (Leadbeater, 2008; Westley, Zimmerman, &
Patton, 2007). Social innovation is also more closely
associated with interorganizational and intersec-
toral collaboration, although again the structures
that social innovators employ vary dramatically
(Murray, Caulier-Grice, & Mulgan, 2010; Wolfe,
2009). Both sets of actors often work across field
boundaries, and often draw on both for-profit and
not-for-profit logics as they develop their initia-
tives to address a particular social problem.
One of the hurdles which has held back the
development of teaching social entrepreneurship
and social innovation in business schools has
been the ambiguity regarding the organizational
forms in which they take place. Early writing on
social entrepreneurship and social innovation lo-
cated these concepts in the nonprofit sector, leav-
ing business schools unclear as to their relevance
and, perhaps more critically, unclear about the
financial viability of courses and programs in
these areas. In the past decade, however, there has
been a significant broadening of the range of or-
ganizations involved in social innovation and so-
cial entrepreneurship. Alongside nonprofits and
social movement organizations, there is now a
growing diversity of organizations working to
tackle social problems, including social entrepre-
neurs (Light, 2008); social enterprises (Defourny &
Nyssens, 2006); and philanthro-capitalists (Ed-
wards, 2008). These new approaches to solving so-
cial problems are epitomized by individuals such
as Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Prize for
his invention of microcredit, Bill Drayton, founder
of Ashoka, an organization that promotes and
funds social entrepreneurship, and the billion dol-
lar philanthropy of the Gates and Clinton
Foundations.
Governments and businesses are also getting
involved: U.S. President Barack Obama estab-
lished an “Office of Social Innovation” (Light, 2008);
European leaders are seeking to connect innova-
tion to social goals (Leadbeater, 2008); and corpo-
rations are encouraged to see the social sector as a
“beta site” for innovation where partnerships can
produce “profitable and sustainable change for
both sides” (Moss Kanter, 1999: 124).
While excited by these developments, we are
acutely aware, as Dey (2006) points out, that the
rhetoric associated with social entrepreneurship
and innovation appears to have led to a somewhat
rose-tinted view of these forms of activity among
academics, the media, and policy makers. Indeed,
the academic discourse is often guilty of empha-
September
sizing the “unequivocally positive effects” of social
entrepreneurs, while at the same time “providing
selective and/or anecdotal evidence of their ‘heroic
deeds’” (Dey, 2006: 121). Although there are a num-
ber of high-profile success stories, there are nu-
merous other examples of failed social entrepre-
neurship and innovation, and questions remain
about the long-term viability of many of the social
business models and templates that are diffusing
around the world (Amin, Cameron, & Hudson, 2002;
Dacin, Dacin, & Matear, 2010; Tracey & Jarvis, 2006).
Nonetheless, it is clear that social entrepreneur-
ship and social innovation are no longer periph-
eral activities confined to the margins of econo-
mies. They are part of a growing and concerted
movement seeking to find alternative solutions to
some of the world’s most intractable social prob-
lems, a movement in which we believe the busi-
ness school community has a critical part to play.
EDUCATING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
AND INNOVATORS
Business schools have a distinctive opportunity to
contribute to the development of social entrepre-
neurs and innovators—individuals who will de-
velop the organizations, services, technologies,
and products to address our most important social
problems. Although some social problems require
technological or scientific solutions, many more
can be solved through relatively simple innovation
and the creative use of existing resources (Chris-
tensen, Baumann, Ruggles, & Sadtler, 2006; Murray
et al., 2010). Social innovation and social entrepre-
neurship are fundamentally about new and inno-
vative ways of organizing, collaborating, and man-
aging that leverage current practices and
technologies. This is where management educa-
tion can play a crucial role— by nurturing the next
generation of social entrepreneurs and supporting
them in their efforts to create social value in inno-
vative ways.
New programs and courses tailored to the needs
of social entrepreneurs and social innovators must
reflect the special challenges they face. For social
entrepreneurs, three challenges stand out (Tracey
& Phillips, 2007). First, social entrepreneurs must
manage distinctive and complex issues of account-
ability. While channels of accountability are rea-
sonably clear in private enterprises, with firms
accountable to their owners, social entrepreneurs
are accountable to multiple consistencies includ-
ing those they are seeking to help. Second, social
entrepreneurs must manage a “double bottom
line.” In other words, they must balance social and
commercial objectives, which can create tensions
2012 Lawrence, Phillips, and Tracey
within their ventures because social outcomes and
commercial performance may need to be traded off
against one another. Third, social entrepreneurs
need to manage a series of complex identity issues
that involve presenting the organization in differ-
ent ways in order to appear legitimate to actors in
both the for-profit and non-profit domains.
For social innovators, there are also unique chal-
lenges. Social innovation involves the transforma-
tion of social systems in ways that both address
social problems in a practical sense and shift our
ways of thinking about these problems. This
means that social innovators require a deep un-
derstanding of how social problems are rooted in
institutionalized beliefs, values, and ideas, as well
as in existing social practices and structures. A
second challenge facing social innovators is the
inherently political nature of their enterprise. So-
cial systems, even those that underpin significant
and obvious social problems, are always tied to
entrenched interests and distributions of advan-
tage and disadvantage. In the best of all worlds,
social innovation may elevate the standing of all,
but just as often it exposes injustice and inequity
in ways that can force the redistribution of
privilege.
This means that social innovators need to be
both creative problem solvers and skilled politi-
cians— overcoming resistance from residential
communities, government agencies, political fac-
tions, and corporate actors can make or break
many social innovations. Of course, all innovation
is associated with some level of transformation
and some degree of politics, but we argue that
these elements of innovation are especially critical
to social innovation and consequently to the edu-
cation of social innovators. Thus, social innova-
tion’s focus on new solutions to social problems
brings with it a distinctive focus and requires a
distinctive set of tools.
IN THIS ISSUE
The purpose of this special issue is to contribute to
our understanding of the learning and educational
implications of social entrepreneurship and social
innovation for business schools and other educa-
tional institutions, as well as for businesses, non-
profits, and social enterprises. The articles that
make up this special issue represent a wide range
of approaches to these issues, but they share a
certain humility in approaching the question of
how to develop education and learning opportuni-
ties for social entrepreneurs and social innovators
that is borne from a combination of the area’s
emerging status as a focus of pedagogy and in-
321
struction, and the hands-on experience of the au-
thors in confronting the special challenges that
come with uniting business education and social
change. The Exemplary Contribution; Essays, Dia-
logues, & Interviews; and Book & Resource Re-
views sections each have their own introductions.
The Research & Reviews (R&R) section of this issue
features four articles introduced here.
The first paper by Kwong, Thompson, and
Cheung compares the effectiveness of social busi-
ness plan teaching (which involves students being
mentored to prepare a business plan for a social
enterprise) with the conventional case study ap-
proach to teaching social entrepreneurship. Busi-
ness planning is a prominent teaching method in
entrepreneurship, but appears less commonly in
social entrepreneurship education. To compare the
two modes of teaching, the authors interviewed
postgraduate business school students who had
participated in a mandatory module on social en-
trepreneurship. A subset of the students on the
module was assigned to the social business plan
stream, with a second subset assigned to the case
study stream. The authors found both strategies to
be valuable approaches for conveying knowledge
about social entrepreneurship, increasing stu-
dents’ interest in social issues, and supporting a
positive disposition toward social enterprise. The
authors conclude by asserting that rather than one
approach being better or worse than the other,
social entrepreneurship education is most effec-
tive when multiple modes of teaching are used
together. Social entrepreneurship educators
should therefore consider using the business plan-
ning approach alongside the case study approach.
We noted above that a core challenge facing
social entrepreneurship educators was to ascer-
tain the core elements and topic areas that should
form the basis of social entrepreneurship curri-
cula. The paper by Miller, Wesley, and Williams
helps to address this issue directly. The authors
drew on a sample of 150 social entrepreneurs in
order to ascertain the social entrepreneurship com-
petences deemed most important by social entre-
preneurs. They then content analyzed the syllabi of
77 social entrepreneurship courses offered by in-
structors based at universities across North Amer-
ica, Europe, Asia, and Australia. This allowed the
authors to compare the perceived skill needs of
social entrepreneurs with what is actually being
offered by educators. Interestingly, there was sig-
nificant common ground between the two groups,
suggesting that educators are doing a good job of
meeting the needs of many social entrepreneurs.
But there were also important areas where current
social entrepreneurship education falls short from
322 Academy of Management Learning & Education
a practitioner perspective. For example, marketing
and selling, ethics, and challenging conventional
thinking were three skill sets considered important
by social entrepreneurs but not extensively offered
by social entrepreneurship education providers. By
highlighting the gaps between what social entre-
preneurs feel they need to know and what social
entrepreneurship educators offer, this paper
makes an important contribution to the literature.
The paper by Howorth, Smith, and Parkinson
examines the relevance of social theories of learn-
ing for social entrepreneurship education. The au-
thors collected data from students on two different
social entrepreneurship courses in the United
Kingdom, one that comprised only social entrepre-
neurs and a second where social entrepreneurs
were taught alongside commercial entrepreneurs.
Their analysis highlights two particularly impor-
tant characteristics of social entrepreneurship ed-
ucation. First, the authors show that reflective
learning methods play a critical role in fostering
self-confidence and a belief that students can be
successful social entrepreneurs. Second, building
psychological safety into courses is crucial for
some students; social entrepreneurs often have
limited formal education, and some can be intim-
idated by a business school setting. For students
such as these, developing a supportive learning
environment is at heart of an effective pedagogical
experience.
The final paper in the R&R section is by Smith
and Woodworth. The authors used social identity
theory and self-efficacy theory to develop a novel
approach to social entrepreneurship education. At
the core of their approach is the idea that educa-
tors need to (1) help students to identify with and
feel part of the social entrepreneurship commu-
nity, and (2) stimulate a belief among students that
they have the tools, ability, and resources needed
to engender meaningful social change. From this
perspective, effective social entrepreneurship ed-
ucation is not simply about imparting knowledge
and information, but also emphasizes relationship
building and confidence building. Smith and
Woodworth outline a range of pedagogical strate-
gies, but focus in particular on the role of group
projects, which they argue are an especially pow-
erful way for students to build a sense of identifi-
cation with the social entrepreneurship community
as well as the self-belief required to be successful
within this community. This paper is particularly
valuable because it shows clearly the relevance of
organization theory to management education in
general and social entrepreneurship education in
particular.
September
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Dacin, P. A., Dacin, M., & Matear, M. 2010. Do we need a theory
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Thomas Lawrence
Simon Fraser University
Nelson Phillips
Imperial College London
Paul Tracey
Cambridge University
2012 Lawrence, Phillips, and Tracey 323

Thomas B. Lawrence is the W. J. VanDusen Professor of Management at the Beedie School of

Business, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Lawrence received his PhD in
organizational analysis from the University of Alberta. His research focuses on the dynamics
of power, change, and institutions in organizations and organizational fields.

Nelson Phillips is professor of strategy and organizational behaviour at Imperial College

London where he is also head of the Organization and Management Group. His research
interests include various aspects of organization theory, technology strategy, innovation and
entrepreneurship, often studied from an institutional theory perspective. Phillips also has an
interest in discourse analysis and related textual research methods.

Paul Tracey is associate professor of human resources and organizations at Judge Business
School, University of Cambridge. Tracey was awarded his PhD from the University of Stirling.
His research interests include social entrepreneurship, regional innovation, and institutional
change.

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