Revealing the Discourses: White Entrepreneurial Motivation in Black South Africa

Abstract

The fundamental premise of social entrepreneurship is to use business knowledge to solve critical economic, social and environmental dilemmas facing a society. Social entrepreneurship is an emerging theme of inquiry in contemporary business, entrepreneurship, marketing and ethics literature. In effect, social entrepreneurs are concerned with making a “mission-related impact” which becomes their central concern.

To date, there has been little attention given to the notion of social entrepreneurship in the discipline of tourism. Despite the lack of attention in tourism research there have been a number of significant social entrepreneurial contributions made to various communities in South Africa. Such contributions demonstrate the significance of change makers in the context of rural South Africa signifying progress in the country's new democracy.

This paper is a consequence of two phases of field work in South Africa over a 10- month period. The paper discusses the motivational behaviour of six Fair Trade Tourism South Africa (FTTSA) entrepreneurs who have developed businesses with the intention of giving back to their South African communities. However, the study employed critical discourse analysis and in so doing it recognizes some of the inherent contradictions in informants' discourses based on their white privilege experienced during apartheid. Two aims focused on this exploration: 1) to seek information regarding entrepreneurial stimuli for involvement in social action, through FTTSA membership, and 2) to investigate FTTSA members' micro and macro discourses that inform their actions and behaviours.