Social entrepreneurship for systemic change: the case of Southeast and South Asian countries

ABSTRACT

This paper distinguishes two levels of system elements that accommodate social entrepreneurs’ strategic role in driving systemic change while also recognizing their limitation of doing so. Relying on the dynamics of system elements to operationalize systemic change, I explore how social entrepreneurs can drive systemic change. This paper identifies 84 “systemic-change companies” out of 191 leading social enterprises in 12 Asian countries. The analysis specifies mechanisms through which three systemic change strategies organize four types of social enterprises’ business models to make systemic change happen. The findings generate implications for practitioners and public policy makers.

KEYWORDS:

• Social enterprise
• social entrepreneurship
• systemic change
• systemic impact
• asia

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Meng Zhao

Dr. Zhao Meng is a visiting associate professor at the Nanyang Business School (NBS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and a senior research fellow at the NBS Center for Emerging Market Studies. He was an associate professor at the Renmin Business School and the founding director of Yunus Center for Social Business & Microfinance, Renmin University of China. He holds a PhD in organization theory and strategy from the Said Business School, Oxford University. His research on multinational corporation strategy, stakeholder management, corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship has appeared on Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Business Horizons, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Financial Times, etc. He is the chief editor of two books on Social Entrepreneurship.