Learning Innovations

Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy

Designing With 2018, Vol. 1(2) 205–221

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DOI: 10.1177/2515127418772177
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Sustainability, and
Scale in Social
Entrepreneurship
Education

Jill Kickul1, Lisa Gundry2, Paulami Mitra3,4,

and Lı́via Berçot5

Abstract
Social entrepreneurship is an emerging and rapidly changing field that examines the
practice of identifying, starting, and growing successful mission-driven for-profit and
nonprofit ventures, that is, organizations that strive to advance social change through
innovative solutions. For educators teaching in this field, we advocate for a design
thinking approach that can be integrated into social entrepreneurship education.
Specifically, we believe that many of the design thinking principles are especially
suitable and useful for educators to facilitate student learning as they create and
incubate social ventures. We also advance a broader conceptual framework, which
we describe as the four main mega-themes in social entrepreneurship education,
namely innovation, impact, sustainability, and scale. We offer ways in which the

1
Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, Marshall School of
Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2
Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, DePaul University, Driehaus College of Business,
Chicago, IL, USA
3
Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organisations, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
4
IÉSEG School of Management, Puteaux, France
5
DePaul University, Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, Chicago, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Jill Kickul, Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab, Marshall
School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90015, USA.
Email: Kickul@marshall.usc.edu
206 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

design thinking steps can be integrated and applied to each of these themes and accel-
erate the social venture creation process. We conclude by discussing and presenting
how design thinking can complement an overall systems thinking perspective.

Keywords
assessment, action learning, social entrepreneurship education, design thinking,
sustainability, innovation, impact, scale

Introduction
Social entrepreneurship education has increasingly become prominent not only
in the U.S. and U.K. business schools but also elsewhere across the globe (Pache
& Chowdhury, 2012; Tracey & Philips, 2007). The interest in the field of social
entrepreneurship education can be further noticed by the increase in cohort
sizes, number of social entrepreneurship clubs in universities, number of intern-
ships available for students with social entrepreneurial educational background,
and the number of social entrepreneurship competitions drawing awards for best
business plan and best master’s thesis. As the field is growing, challenges related
to teaching and developing courses catering to the needs of prospective social
entrepreneurs are on the rise (Tracey & Philips, 2007). The challenge is deeper in
the case of social entrepreneurship as business schools must be able to develop
pedagogic frameworks across three distinct competing institutional logics of
social, commercial, and public sector logic that social entrepreneurs are trained
to pursue (Pache & Chowdhury, 2012). Thus, unlike commercial entrepreneur-
ship or philanthropic institutions, social entrepreneurial knowledge is threefold
tacit. However, like entrepreneurship education, it cannot be easily codified
through simple teaching material (Fayolle, 2008; Tracey & Philips, 2007).
In addition, if we contend that ‘‘entrepreneurship is by no means confined
solely to economic institutions’’ (Drucker, 1985, p. 23), the challenge for all
entrepreneurship educators is to develop and implement programs focused on
addressing and teaching social entrepreneurship and its relevance and relation-
ship to issues of economic and social sustainability. Tracey amd Phillips (2007)
make the compelling argument that given the increasing number of social entre-
preneurial ventures and the unique set of challenges faced by these ventures,
academic entrepreneurship programs should include the study of social enter-
prises. Thus, it is time to carefully look for new ways we can augment our
curriculum and pedagogy to assist our students in creating and driving social
innovation and change for their communities. One such approach is to prepare
students to be designers, so that they consider problems and opportunities from
the client’s or user’s perspective while engaging in collaboration as they identify
potential solutions and test them prior to making the implementation decision.
Kickul et al. 207

Design Thinking and Social Entrepreneurship

Education: A Process to Solve Wicked Problems
Entrepreneurship programs within business schools are attempting to prepare
graduates to build and grow organizations within the context of a complex and
turbulent external environment that demands more than analytic abilities
(Bennis & O’Toole, 2005). Students will face scenarios that may be poorly
suited for the rational-analytic framework they are taught in many programs,
and observers have noted that current business education does little to develop
empathy or sensitivity to the experiences of others (Glen, Suciu, & Baughn,
2014). Entrepreneurship students must be capable of solving problems in
unstable conditions, with no adequate data and with unpredictable outcomes.
To counterbalance the current analytical approach, design thinking should be
included in the entrepreneurship curriculum both in the undergraduate and
graduate program levels (Glen et al., 2014).
Design thinking offers a framework to confront poorly defined, complicated
problems that complement the analytic approaches students have learned in
their programs so that they are better equipped for tackling and solving them
(Glen et al., 2014). ‘‘design thinking is a discipline that uses the designer’s sens-
ibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible
and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market
opportunities’’ (Brown, 2008, p. 86). A design pedagogy was first proposed by
Herbert Simon (1967) who urged that it be integrated into business education
whose focus is to devise actions in order to change existing situations into
desired ones (Simon, 1996).
However, interest in integrating design thinking into management education
began to emerge in a much broader way in the last several years, perhaps due to
the need for an approach that can guide students through project-based learning
(Beckman & Barry, 2007). As Roger Martin (Dunne & Martin, 2006) stated,
integrating design education into business education involves encouraging stu-
dents to ‘‘. . . think in terms of projects where you solve wicked problems using
abductive reasoning [i.e., the logic of ‘what might be’] in addition to deductive
and inductive skills . . . learn collaborative skills . . . where they have to go out and
understand users’’ (Dunne & Martin, 2006, p. 514). For example, design think-
ing has been taught using a joint analytic process, a team-based methodology in
which students solve a problem through an iterative process of brainstorming
and knowledge sharing (Wang & Wang, 2011).
With its emphasis on deep observation and understanding the user experience
prior to identifying the underlying problem, it is particularly well-suited for the
types of situations students will encounter as they attempt to discover solutions
with impact. Therefore, with its reliance on creativity skills, design thinking has
been described as a valuable path to the discovery and exploitation of entrepre-
neurial opportunities (Erichsen & Christensen, 2013). We contend that many of
208 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

the design thinking principles are especially useful for entrepreneurship educa-
tors as they facilitate student learning of key skills and knowledge of the new
venture creation process. Indeed, Sarasvathy (2008) noted that entrepreneurship
is a process of effectuation, one that relies on design principles as entrepreneurs
engage in experimentation and revision. There are five steps of design thinking:
empathy, defining the real problem, ideate alternative solutions, prototype
one or more solutions, and test these solutions in the markets and communities
for whom they were designed. Within each step, key questions arise and guide
the designer through observation, problem diagnosis, ideation, experimentation,
and implementation.
Educators have proposed models for incorporating design thinking into entre-
preneurship education, including the DesUni approach that ‘‘creates a learning
environment that stimulates students by activating a designerly mind-set, actions
and imagination in their work with the curriculum’’ (Nielsen & Stovang, 2015).
In the context of problem-based learning, it emphasizes six competencies: discover
the present, envision the future, sense future potential, interact with others, go to
theory, and novel artefacts; within entrepreneurship education, it interconnects
creativity, exploration, and anticipating the future (Nielsen & Stovang, 2015: p.
983). Huq and Gilbert (2015) have also shown that design-driven pedagogy
offered within an open environment with the inclusion of humor and experiential
learning through role-play can greatly improve student learning outcomes.
In the following section, we explore the ways in which design thinking can
be integrated into social entrepreneurship education—an area that, by its very
definition, impels students to consider ways to gather and combine scarce
resources, generate creative solutions, and continually experiment to bring
needed innovations to underserved or unserved markets.

Integrating Design Thinking Into Social

Entrepreneurship Education: Developing the
Designer’s Mindset
While there are many definitions of social entrepreneurship (Seelos & Mair,
2005; Short, Moss, & Lumpkin, 2009), one that many entrepreneurship scholars
and practitioners tend to agree on was articulated by Mair and Marti (2006):

A process of creating value by combining resources in new ways. Second, these

resource combinations are intended primarily to explore and exploit opportunities
to create social value by stimulating social change or meeting social needs. And third,
when viewed as a process, social entrepreneurship involves the offering of services
and products but can also refer to the creation of new organizations. (p. 37)

In sum, social entrepreneurship can be considered a vehicle for sustainable

development, as defined in the Brundtland Report as ‘‘meeting the needs and
Kickul et al. 209

aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the
future’’ (Strategic Imperatives, 1987, p. 39).
Moreover, social entrepreneurship indeed ‘‘transcends traditional nonprofit
sectors and applies as equally to health, environment, education and social welfare
as it does to economic development or job creation programs’’ (Alter, 2007, p. 14).
Table 1 depicts six types of social venture initiatives, each with a range of activities
that address many of today’s most pressing social problems and needs. Because
social problems are often complex and intertwined, social ventures often embrace
missions that involve undertaking many initiatives simultaneously.
Defining and understanding social entrepreneurship in this manner enables
educators to rethink how we can integrate new teaching methods into the class-
room that creates an openness and dialogue with beneficiaries, stakeholders, and
community leaders who are experiencing a social problem and in need of a social
solution or innovation. Social entrepreneurship needs to be understood in a
larger context of social change and social impact, rather than just creating

Table 1. Six Types of Social Enterprise Initiatives.

Type Description Examples

Knowledge Discovering, developing,  Medical research

development interpreting, or sharing
knowledge to solve exist-
ing or expected problems
Service or product Providing goods and services
development to fulfill unmet needs of
and delivery constituents
Capacity enhance- Helping organizations or
ment and skills individuals to strengthen
development their capabilities
Behavior change Sharing information and pro-
programs viding motivation to assist
individuals to change
behavior
Enabling systems Establishing systems and
and infrastruc- infrastructure that facili-
ture tate social change
development
Policy development Promoting or resisting a
and change in government,
implementation multi-lateral or corporate
policy
Source: McKinsey & Company, NYU Stern School of Business, Learning for Social Impact Study, 2009.
 Policy research
 Traditional wisdom
 Soup kitchens
 Performing arts
 Anti-malaria bed nets
 Hybrid seeds
 Vocational training
 Technical assistance
 Seatbelt campaigns
 Drunk-driving awareness
 Community health outreach
 Networking opportunities
 Convenings
 Definition of common standards
 IT systems
 Grassroots campaign
 Lobbying
 Litigation
210 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

new ventures. Often seen as a combination of social mission and commercial

approach (Kostetska & Berezyak, 2014), social entrepreneurs tend to
focus on problems from a customer-centered perspective. Shifting this focus
to a human-centered approach and applying design thinking techniques to
social entrepreneurship projects can build more creative solutions to solve
existing problems.
Entrepreneurs should know whom they are working with or for and be
empathetic of their client’s reality (Worsham, 2012). All too often, projects do
not have the expected results because entrepreneurs have preconceived solutions
that do not take into consideration the client’s culture and needs and have not
been prototyped to analyze flaws and receive feedback (Brown & Wyatt, 2010).
To develop better solutions, entrepreneurs should build teams with diverse back-
grounds, as these different interactions will influence how they collaborate and
will reflect on the proposed solutions.
The Naandi Water treatment center in India is an example of a project that
succeeded in its final objective but failed to consider the local culture and needs
(Brown & Wyatt, 2010). The project brought clean water to the community, but
it could have achieved so much more if the designers had built prototypes and
asked for feedback from those using their service. Often the best solution
emerges during the assessment process, and had the designers approached
the problem using design thinking tools, they would be exposed to the
social challenges of that community, giving them the opportunity to adapt to
local conditions.
On the other hand, the Kingwood Trust, a U.K. charity dedicated to develop-
ing good practices for people with autism, is a great example of how design
thinking can improve people’s lives (Liedtka, Salzman, & Azer, 2017). In 2009,
they wanted to redesign their accommodations, and brought in designer Katie
Gaudion who studied how they interacted and communicated and how their
sensory preferences would influence the final design. To do so, she created a set
of visual cards, with photographs of daily activities that helped participants
understand what was being proposed and support her solutions. This shows
the importance of being empathetic to the client’s reality and prototyping to
get feedback on the effectiveness and impact of solutions (Liedtka et al., 2017).
Design Thinking’s collaborative methodology and tools enabled teams to draw
on diverse experiences (Liedtka, 2014) by building a collective and creative
environment that optimizes the process of product creation. These interactions
lead to positive societal contributions through innovative approaches to social
entrepreneurship ventures.

Mega-Themes in Social Entrepreneurship

Several conceptual models and frameworks have been proposed by scholars such
as Glunk and Van Gils (2010); Kickul, Janssen-Selvadurai, and Griffiths (2012);
Kickul et al. 211

Pache and Chowdhury (2012); and Tracey and Philips (2007) to train social
entrepreneurship students on how to bridge competing institutional logics and
manage different stakeholders in order to reap the advantages of innovative
hybrid strategies (Mitra, Byrne, & Janssen, 2017). What is still missing is a
broader theoretical framework that could navigate through solid conceptual
blocks, which we describe as the four main mega-themes in social entrepreneur-
ship education. These four mega-themes, namely innovation, impact, sustain-
ability, and scale, have been formulated to cater to a broad range of pedagogic
purposes specific to social entrepreneurship education. These themes are
discussed, and ways in which the design thinking steps mentioned earlier can
be applied to facilitate student learning outcomes in each of these themes are
presented, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Innovation
Within social entrepreneurship, success is determined by the innovations social
entrepreneurial firms produce, the outcomes they achieve, and by the scaling of
social impact rather than measurement of firm size, growth rate, and processes
(Bacq, Ofstein, Kickul, & Gundry, 2015). In preparing students to become social
entrepreneurs, they must learn to create solutions to complex problems using
approaches that are both scalable and sustainable. These are known as catalytic
innovations (Christensen, Baumann, Ruggles, & Sadtler, 2006) that provide
good enough solutions to social challenges inadequately met by existing
market players with traditional methods and solutions not well suited for the

Figure 1. Integrating design thinking with the four mega-themes.

Source: https://dschool.stanford.edu.
212 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

situation. Social entrepreneurs often use bricolage, to develop novel ways to

attract and distribute resources, identify overserved or unserved market seg-
ments, and offer products and services that are simpler, cheaper, and good
enough (Gundry, Kickul, Griffiths, & Bacq, 2011). However, to be scalable
and sustainable, the environment needs to be receptive to the advent and imple-
mentation of socially innovative ideas (Chell, Nicolopoulou, & Karatas -Özkan,
2010; Smith & Stevens, 2010). Solutions and initiatives can fail because they are
disconnected from the client’s or community’s needs and have not undergone
experimentation and prototyping to solicit appropriate feedback (Brown &
Wyatt, 2010). Therefore, innovations are more likely to be successful and a
meaningful source of competitive advantage if they are developed through a
process of deep understanding and observation—design thinking. Students
engage in contextual inquiry, identifying the greatest needs of the clients and
communities for whom they are seeking solutions. This includes experiencing
empathy, seeing the situation from the clients’ perspective, and asking key ques-
tions, including: Why is the problem experienced in this way? What is the real
problem? What is the persona for whom I am designing the solution? With
information based on these observations, students can move into idea-
tion—generating ideas and solutions.

Impact
A second mega-theme in social entrepreneurship education is social or environ-
mental impact. At the foundation of the social enterprise is its ability to create
this impact at a variety of levels—for individuals, for communities, and for
society. The challenge for educators is to provide a socially relevant academic
experience in order to help students gain in-depth insights into how to create
impact, particularly across a number of sectors or areas including poverty alle-
viation, energy, health, and sustainability.
One such framework that can be adapted using a design thinking perspective
is the success equation framework advanced by Saul (2012). As shown in
Figure 2, this framework and exercise enables students to work alongside com-
munity members to answer the question, ‘‘What are we ultimately trying to
accomplish?’’ (Impact; part D in Figure 2). It enables them to consider the
overall impact they together want to achieve and the addressable outcomes
(parts A + B + C in Figure 2) that are most important in meeting that
impact. In having them identify which outcomes they want to produce, everyone
is asked the following questions:

1. What is different and unique about the community?

2. What capabilities and resources do we collectively have?
3. What outcomes do we strive to achieve?
4. Which of these outcomes are most important and valuable to the community?
Kickul et al. 213

Figure 2. Success equation formula.

From identifying outcomes, the performance measures are then determined.

These measures will be the direct indicators used to determine how they are
progressing toward the outcomes. Finally, they then mutually identify the stra-
tegies that would complement each of the outcomes and their measurable indi-
cators that provide feedback on whether their strategies were effective in meeting
their respective outcomes. The strategy section of the exercise allows the social
enterprise and the community to brainstorm which programs and activities will
drive outcomes and in time, overall impact. Brainstorming can be guided by a
host of creativity tools, including challenging assumptions, using cues in
SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify or Magnify, Put to other
uses, Eliminate, and Reverse or Rearrange; see Michalko, 2006), and other
structured methods to generating novel and feasible ideas.

Sustainability
In addition to impact, the third mega-theme is financial sustainability.
This theme examines how and in what ways can the social venture become
internally viable beyond raising philanthropic donations, grants, and so forth.
At the heart of sustainability is the concept of the business model and how likely
the social enterprise can make a substantial contribution toward the solution of
the need or problem that can be sustained for a period of time consistent with
achieving its social or environmental impact. As discussed by Kickul and Lyons
214 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

(2016), business models are the recipes for how a social venture can be econom-
ically feasible. There are three components that comprise, including: (a) value
identification—understanding and finding value desired by customers, benefici-
aries from their perspective, not from the entrepreneur’s perspective; (b) value
delivery—how to actually deliver that value to those who most need and desire
it; and (c) value capture—once identified and delivered, how essentially is the
social enterprise paid and in what way? At the core of this is the venture’s
revenue(s).
To assist students in actualizing their own business model for their social
venture is to introduce them to the social lean canvas, an adaptation based on
Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas.1 The social lean canvas (see Figure 3) is a concise
visual representation of a potential business model, in which students first define
the purpose of the organization, which has them consider explicitly how value
can be created from both an economic and a social perspective. The purpose
statement is considered before the customer discovery phase of defining cus-
tomers, beneficiaries, and stakeholders, for whom they will ultimately design
solutions. In addition to guiding the creation of the initial business model, the
purpose statement also directs the pivots that the model will have to make as the
idea is tested and validated. Moreover, both the financial sustainability and cost

Figure 3. Social lean canvas.

Kickul et al. 215

structure components of the canvas are identified by having the students define
the social impact they would like to see realized. The visual canvas facilitates
business model prototyping, the fourth step in design thinking (Glen et al.,
2014). With its focus on the rapid generation of ideas and experimentation,
along with the interwoven economic and social value it conveys, the social
lean canvas serves as a foundation for a fully actualized social venture.

Scale
Scaling could be described as a means to maximize social impact, enter new
markets, as well as maximize financial objectives (Kickul & Gundry, 2015).
Under this mega-theme, our article elucidates two types of scaling, namely,
scaling deep and scaling wide, that must be introduced to social entrepreneurship
students. Scaling deep emphasizes the recognition of opportunity and the need
for social entrepreneurial ventures around the social entrepreneur’s immediate
community. Hence, the intention of the social enterprise is to organize its
innovative activities, sustainable social business model, and impact around
its immediate vicinity by creating new products and services. Such is the case
of Grameen Bank that started with providing banking services to the poor,
followed by providing newer products and services in education, health, and
technology to the same community (Kickul, Janssen-Selvadurai, et al., 2012).
Scaling wide refers to spreading the social impact to newer communities.
Baumol’s (1968) emphasis on entrepreneurs that replicate business ideas is an
example of scaling wide. For example, reference must be made to Grameen Bank
and the concept of microcredit that has become a worldwide phenomenon
(Kickul, Janssen-Selvadurai, et al., 2012). While scaling deep could be con-
sidered more challenging due to its constant need for innovation, scaling wide
could generate large impact toward social issues such as poverty alleviation
by utilizing previous innovations (Griffiths, Kickul, Bacq, & Terjesen, 2012;
Kickul, Terjesen, Bacq, & Griffiths, 2012). The iterative nature of design
thinking facilitates the need to scale wide and scale deep, as students learn to
use continual feedback that emerges during the prototyping and testing steps
to launch innovative solutions that apply within the immediate community the
social venture serves and extend to other communities and contexts. This feed-
back in turn leads to deeper insights about the communities, in turn stimulating
new ideas and solutions to be tested for greater impact.

Next Steps: Augmenting Design Thinking With

a Systems Thinking Mindset
While we have focused much of our discussion on the value of integrating design
thinking and its role in teaching the four mega-themes of social entrepreneur-
ship, we would be remiss if we did not discuss how design thinking can
216 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

complement an overall systems thinking perspective. Systems thinking is an

approach that can assist students to think more holistically regarding the overall
challenges they are encountering as they enter into communities and begin to
understand their overall problems from the beginning. Similar to design think-
ing, it is a collective and participatory approach for understanding the complex-
ities and factors that underlie persistent and fickle problems. In doing so,
students along with the community can identify the appropriate opportunities
for well-needed and designed solutions (Ahearn, 2017).
This call for a systems thinking approach has been advanced by one of the
pioneers in the field. Namely, Bill Drayton (2005), chair and founder of Ashoka,
has argued that

The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is not

working and to solve the problem by changing the system, spreading solutions,
and persuading entire societies to take new leaps. Identifying and solving large-
scale social problems requires social entrepreneurs because only entrepreneurs have
the committed vision and inexhaustible determination to persist until they have
transformed an entire system. The scholar comes to rest when he expresses an
idea. The professional succeeds when she solves a client’s problem. The manager
calls it quits when he has enabled his organization to succeed. Social entrepreneurs
can only come to rest when their vision has become the new pattern all
across society. (p. 1)

With a systems thinking mindset, students gain a better understanding of how

one solution applies to a problem since they analyze the system or systems they
are trying to affect and all the issues and factors that influence it. This involves
interviewing and engaging key stakeholders (community leaders, government
officials, potential beneficiaries, other social enterprises, etc.) and mapping out
their issues with a systems map before arriving at potential solutions.
The emphasis is on solving problems by creative collaboration among stake-
holders as well as across sectors and social enterprise initiatives such as those
identified in our Table 1.
An example of combining design thinking and systems thinking can be found
in a course offered at New York University’s Stern School of Business called
Social Problem-based Entrepreneurship. In this course, student teams travel to
India for 3 weeks and with a preliminary problem of focus, they do a deep dive
within the problem’s sector. The goal is to understand their sector’s ecosystem
and their problem holistically as they meet and interview users, other social
enterprises, nongovernmental organizations, government and regulatory agen-
cies, and so forth. Students can also work with domain-driven development
institutions that can share the resource costs to improve the standard of living
within the community across a variety of human indicators (domain areas
include education, agriculture, health care, renewable energy, etc.). When they
Kickul et al. 217

return back to the university, they use tools such as a need-gap analysis and
opportunity mapping and build prototypes of their solution using design think-
ing techniques. Throughout the semester, teams continue to develop their busi-
ness models and go-to-market strategies that will ultimately help them incubate
and launch their social enterprise.
Finally, we summarize how the augmentation of systems thinking with design
thinking can help students in understanding the four mega-themes discussed
earlier. In Table 2, we identify how the combination of both perspectives assists
students in learning and appreciating each of the themes.

Concluding Thoughts
Developing solutions based solely on data or simple problem-solving analysis is
customary on current business education. By making use of design thinking
tools and approaching the problem from a human-centered perspective, social
entrepreneurship students can propose holistic solutions and innovative
approaches to existing problems. Integrating design thinking with the
four mega-themes of Social Entrepreneurship, namely, innovation, impact, sus-
tainability, and scale, enhances the practical and theoretical learning experience
of social entrepreneurship students in business schools. This approach

Table 2. Augmenting Systems Thinking With Design Thinking Across the Social
Entrepreneurship Themes.

Example learning goals or

Mega themes Design thinking +Systems thinking outcomes

Innovation Identify the (real) Identify the issues and Empathy and observation of
problem to solve factors that make up clients and communities to
a complicated identify key problems to
problem solve before building
solutions
Impact Generate alterna- Generate problem- Learn and gain input from
tive solutions oriented ideas from communities or stake-
(for impact) multiple or various holders and iterate ideas
stakeholders to test potential impact
Sustainability Build a prototype of Build a system map to Comprehensive understand-
the solution develop a nuanced ing of the internal and
appreciation of external factors in creating
problem solution and social venture
Scale Test and measure Test ideas to ensure Full awareness of issues
potential positive outcomes involved in scaling deep or
solution within the system scaling wide
218 Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1(2)

complements the existing pedagogical framework to guide students through

theory- and practice-oriented project-based learning. In addition, the article
emphasizes that the four mega-themes along with systems thinking mind-set
and designing thinking approach can be taught through an iterative process
with feedback loops of brain-storming, knowledge sharing, developing, and
testing solutions while simultaneously covering the themes of innovation,
impact, sustainability, and scale.
Social entrepreneurship educators must also be aware of some limitations.
While developing the course of study over the four broad themes along
with the design thinking and systems thinking approach, educators must con-
sider that this approach could be time-consuming and sometimes expensive.
As design thinking requires building prototypes, testing and measuring the
impact and sustainability of solutions while systems thinking approach
requires interviewing and engaging relevant stakeholders, merging a
design thinking and systems thinking approach with the four mega-themes
when building a social entrepreneurship program must be considered.
Nevertheless, such iterative pedagogic approaches can be powerful and effect-
ive in assisting the next cadre of social entrepreneurs address persistent social
problems and create meaningful change for individuals, communities, and
more broadly society.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article.

Note
1. See www.leancanvas.com; which is, in turn, adapted from Alex Osterwalder’s Business
Model Canvas.

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Author Biographies
Jill Kickul is a professor of clinical entrepreneurship, Lloyd Greif Center for
Entrepreneurial Studies and research director, Brittingham Social Enterprise
Lab at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
Her research and teaching interests include social entrepreneurship, hybrid orga-
nizing, and entrepreneurship.

Lisa Gundry is a professor of entrepreneurship at DePaul University’s Driehaus

College of Business in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship.
Her research and teaching interests include innovation and creativity, design
thinking, and entrepreneurial growth strategies.

Paulami Mitra is a teaching and research assistant at IESEG School of

Management, France and a PhD student at Louvain Research Institute in
Management and Organizations, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Her research and teaching interests include different dynamics of social
entrepreneurship.

Lı́via Berçot is a graduate assistant and a masters candidate in Sustainable

Management at DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.
Her research interests include design thinking, social enterprises, and
sustainability.