Unit 2

Social Entrepreneurship

Social Entrepreneurial Habits &

Motivations
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 Social Entrepreneurial Habits & Motivations

• Learning Objectives
• 1) Discuss social entrepreneurial habits
• 2) Explain social entrepreneurial motivations
• 3) Explain the link between social entrepreneurship and social justice

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 Six Habits of Social Entrepreneurs

1. Develop SOLUTIONS
 Social and environmental problems may be what motivate social
entrepreneurs but they don’t focus people on the “problem.”
Instead, they engage others and create excitement around new
solutions, usually in the form of a product or service. They talk
“value propositions” not mission statements.
 Elnor Rozenrot of Innosight Ventures said in the very first interview that 90% of successful
ventures start out with the wrong business plan. The ones that succeed, therefore, must alter
course. “It takes a combination of hardheadedness, humility, and courage to stop and say, ‘This
isn’t working’ or ‘Our assumptions were wrong,’ particularly when your funding is contingent on
carrying out a preauthorized plan. However, the entrepreneur’s inclination to self-correct stems
from the attachment to a goal rather than to a particular approach or plan”

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 Six Habits of Social Entrepreneurs

2. Measure OUTCOMES
 Social entrepreneurs know exactly how their solution benefits people or the
environment and they measure their success by their impact, not by their good
intention.
 They know the difference between outputs (which measure your effort) and
outcomes (which measure the impact of your effort). They measure outcomes so
they can know and show the real difference they’re making.

 “There is no limit to what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit. One of the best
examples is as following:

David Kuria of Kenya, Founder of IkoToilet. Kuria built hygienic and affordable toilets for the 1 million
slum dwellers of Kibera (a district of Nairobi, Kenya) but found that government regulations would
make it difficult to expand his efforts. So he put the City Council of Nairobi’s logo on all Ikotoilets he
constructed, which made people feel like the government was responding to their needs. The
government was happy to take the credit and became very supportive of Kuria’s Ikotoilet, lifting
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barriers for expansion.
 Six Habits of Social Entrepreneurs

3. Establish CHANGE MODELS

 Whereas businesses find systematic ways to generate profit, social entrepreneurs find
systematic ways to create change. They find formulas for change (also known as change
models) that can be repeatable and scalable. This allows them to focus on the essentials
and bring change to as many people as possible.

 They know solutions does not lead automatically to outcome, so you need to establish and
validate the change models.

 The word “entrepreneur” comes from French, originally meaning “to take into one’s own hands.”
Excellent social entrepreneurs, therefore, do not depend on traditional avenues for creating social
impact (e.g. government, religious institutions) and blaze their own paths for creating impact.

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 Six Habits of Social Entrepreneurs

4. Practice INCLUSION
 Social entrepreneurs know social change is complex and much more difficult than getting
people to buy your can of soda. It often requires behavior and/or system change. To
achieve that type of impact, you need understanding, empathy and collaboration. Social
entrepreneurs succeed when they include others in the design, production, distribution
and evaluation of their solutions.

5. Leverage ASSETS
 The vast majority of social entrepreneurs have to bootstrap their way to success. So you don’t
start with “business plans.” You start by creatively leveraging your assets, which include people,
skills, resources, organizations and networks. When you can demonstrate some success or
achieve impact with what you already have, you can then convince others to help you scale.

 “one of the primary functions of the social entrepreneur is to serve as a kind of social alchemist: to
create new social compounds; to gather people’s ideas, experiences, skills, and resources in
configurations that society is not naturally aligned to produce”
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 Six Habits of Social Entrepreneurs

6. Think LONG-TERM
 Small change is easy. Big change is hard. To have meaningful impact on a problem, you
need long-term thinking. That means thinking about how solutions can last, how ventures
can sustain, and how outcomes can scale. This is what differentiates short-term projects
from long-lasting ventures.

Strong ETHICAL IMPETUS

 Highly-successful Social entrepreneurs aren’t fueled by a drive to become famous or build
a fortune, but a desire to restore justice in society, to address social problems. And this
motivation comes down to a clear sense of what is right and what is wrong. This “ethical
impetus” is not only evident in the work of successful social entrepreneurs, but also in
how they live their lives.

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 Social Entrepreneurial Motivations
Compassion and Social Entrepreneurship (cont’d)
Figure 1. How Compassion Encourages Social Entrepreneurship
Integrative thinking
Likelihood of engaging in
Compassion Prosocial cost-benefit social entrepreneurship
A prosocial motivator analysis The process of founding a
characterized by other- market-based organization for
orientation and an emotional Commitment to creating social value
connection to others in suffering alleviating others’
suffering

Pragmatic and moral legitimacy

of social enterprise
Competing stakeholder interests
Ineffectiveness of traditional
solutions
Accountability demands
Bandwagon effects

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 Social Entrepreneurial Motivations
The Model of Moral Engagement (cont’d)

• Figure 2. The Model of Social Entrepreneurs’ Moral Engagement

Moral
Violations of
Unmet Engagement
Moral Self-Efficacy
Social Needs Low/High
Mandates
Intensity

Social Venture
Creation

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 Social Entrepreneurial Motivations

• Social Justice and Social Entrepreneurship

• Unmet social needs could be perceived as a social injustice.
• Perceptions of social injustices lead to social entrepreneurship.
• Perceptions of social injustice could trigger a moral response.
• Perceptions of social injustice trigger a deontic response, a moral obligation to act.

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 Reading

• Students should read chapter 3 from the book to enhance their

further understanding.
• https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781136655937/epubcfi/6/26%5B
%3Bvnd.vst.idref%3DfC03_chapter%5D!/4/2/14/14/28/6%5BRfn3_32%
5D/2%400:7.71

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