Social Entrepreneurship as ‘Doing Good’ by Mitigating Opposition Better

Abstract

We complement emerging theory-building in social entrepreneurship by adopting a new perspective. We start with the assumption that the existence of opposing interests is the main reason that things that should have been done to improve social welfare have not been done. We then draw on economic concepts and logical reasoning to build a typology of problems relevant to the goal of improving social welfare. Determining the solutions to those problem types identifies which forces are likely to oppose their implementation. From that basis, we describe which characteristics would be helpful, and which wouldn’t, for providing the solutions while also mitigating the likely opposition. That analysis provides the basis to argue, that for specific problems, social entrepreneurs are likely to embody a relatively better set of characteristics (versus, for example, a local governmental agency). We then discuss the implications for research, management and policy.

Keywords:

• Social entrepreneurship
• opposing forces
• problem typology
• social welfare
• comparative advantage

Ethical treatments

No human subjects nor animal participants were involved in this research. This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Disclosure statement

The author (Arend) declares he has no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 For clarification, the focus of our analysis is on entrepreneurial activity rather than on service activity. Solid research on how social entrepreneurs address such public service concerns in traditional ways already exists (e.g. Dees 1998; El Ebrashi 2013; Fowler 2000; Hockerts 2010; Mair, Battilana, and Cardenas 2012; Zahra et al. 2009). Our interest, however, is on the use of innovative ways to address the needs that standard alternatives, including non-profit services and philanthropic efforts, have not.

2 We categorize the problems to a level of specificity required to support our argument rather than to a level of detail where generalization is lost. We do so by taking our cues from previous economics research. For example, we drill down to the different types of market failures, but not to specific cases by industry, time period, or nationality. This approach allows us to capture and categorize what we believe is the full range of problems that social entrepreneurs try to address, in a meaningful way that retains reference to previous work in this field and related areas.

3 We assume a western-type capitalist, market-based economic system and its principles as our baseline context for provision of such solutions here.

4 Note that rational reasoning can be made both in terms of absolute and relative losses experienced by the opposing party. While it could be argued that only the former should matter, the latter has often been found to be more important to decision-makers (e.g. in tournament theory – see Bloom and Michel 2002). We leave for future work alternative, often subjectively-reasoned opposition. For example, we do not consider opposition based on religion or on ideologies that are not scientifically grounded.

5 We have assumed western-style, democratic governmental institutions and capitalist, market-based economic principles as our analysis context. We did so for two reasons: (i) the audience for English-language research in social entrepreneurship is more familiar it; and, (ii) it is a context that allows social entrepreneurs to act when institutions do not, that provides room to generate sustainable solutions (i.e. ones that are self-funding), and that motivates them to act through private-gain-creating innovation rather than through politicking or coercion. This context choice also allows us to explicitly avoid religious and other ideological issues. Note as well that we have chosen to remain at the level of ‘general’ economic principles rather than consider specific theories (e.g. agency; identity), in order to show our argument works at that level. We leave alternative governmental arrangements, alternative economic orientations, and applications to specific economic theories for others to consider in future work.

6 To be clear, we are not suggesting that every problem has a potential current fixer that can address it completely and economically. Social entrepreneurs have their limits, as do social institutions and private entities (e.g. due to technological constraints).

7 We leave the details regarding how each potential specific fixer would address each specific problem type for follow-on analysis, based on the groundwork provided in this paper.