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Digital democracy
(2006)
Comite para Democratizacao da Informatica (CDI) is a non-political, non-profit, and non-governmental organization founded in Brazil in 1995. It aims to promote the social inclusion of less-privileged people, using information and communication technologies to teach them the basic concepts of self-esteem, citizenship and their rights as individuals. CDI executive director and founder Rodrigo Baggio's first step was to launch a campaign called "Computers for All", where companies were contacted and asked to donate used computers to the favelas. The next step was to create computer schools in the slums. In response to demand for new schools in other Brazilian states and beyond, CDI designed a "social franchise" model. The idea was to set up regional CDI offices to create new schools. Students are motivated to develop ideas that generate income and give them better employment prospects. The challenge now is for Baggio and his team to manage growth without losing the original vision of CDI.
This case documents the circumstances of managing the growth phase of a start-up company. Entropy International faces the unique challenges and opportunities of social entrepreneurship but also entrepreneurship in general. Founded by a visionary environmental activist in 1996 as an environmental consulting boutique in the United Kingdom, Entropy grew with the emerging needs of large multinational corporations to publicly report on and minimise the environmental and social impacts of their operations. Entropy started out as a two-person consultancy to become the market leader in Europe, selling an integrated environmental, health and safety, quality control and reporting suite. At the time of the case (March 2003), Entropy employed 30 people and expected revenues of 1.6 million pounds for fiscal year 2003.
Innovation and Scaling for Impact forces us to reassess how social sector organizations create value. Drawing on a decade of research, Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair transcend widely held misconceptions, getting to the core of what a sound impact strategy entails in the nonprofit world. They reveal an overlooked nexus between investments that might not pan out (innovation) and expansion based on existing strengths (scaling). In the process, it becomes clear that managing this tension is a difficult balancing act that fundamentally defines an organization and its impact.
The authors examine innovation pathologies that can derail organizations by thwarting their efforts to juggle these imperatives. Then, through four rich case studies, they detail innovation archetypes that effectively sidestep these pathologies and blend innovation with scaling. Readers will come away with conceptual models to drive progress in the social sector and tools for defining the future of their organizations.
La Iniciativa Sekem
(2005)
Mastering System Change
(2018)
Organizational closure competencies and scaling: A realist approach to theorizing social enterprise
(2014)
Purpose
Social entrepreneurs create novel approaches to social problems such as poverty. But scaling these approaches to the dimension of the problem can be a difficult task. In the social enterprise sector, the subject of scaling has become a key dimension of organizational performance. This chapter advances the scholarly literature on the scaling of social enterprises, a literature which is currently in an embryonic stage and characterized by conceptual ambiguity and fragmented perspectives.
Methodology/Approach
We engage realist philosophy of science to develop mechanism-based causal explanations of the scaling performance of social enterprises. We also develop a coding scheme to guide systematic empirical analysis and highlight the explanatory power of counterfactuals. Counterfactuals have been largely neglected in empirical research as they represent mechanisms that are enabled but remain unobservable – in a state of suppression or neutralization of their effects.
Findings
We question the ability of organizations to “socially engineer” desired outcomes and introduce a new construct – organizational closure competence. Anchored in realism, this construct provides a basis for productive approaches to social engineering. We elaborate on the importance of organizational closure competencies for scaling, derive a series of propositions, and develop ideas for future research and for practice.
Research, Practical and Social Implications
Applying a realist lens allows us to add empirical rigor to research on social enterprises and scaling. Our approach constitutes a move from rich narratives to causal models and informs the way we design and evaluate efforts to address important societal challenges.
Originality/Value of Chapter
This chapter demonstrates how to operationalize realist philosophy of science for causal explanations of complex social phenomena and better utilize its theoretical and practical value.
Organizations across sectors appear to be shifting their ambitions from solving social problems to changing entire social systems. This phenomenon offers a timely opportunity to revisit what came to be known as the third mandate of organizational theory. In this paper we interrogate how organizational scholarship can productively explore and theorize the relationship between organizations and social systems in organized system change – an effort by organizations to alter the conditions that generate the characteristics of social problems and their dynamics of change. As a basis for theorizing organized system change, we develop an analytical scaffold that helps researchers to attend to fundamental aspects of the phenomenon and to achieve parsimony without blanking out complexity. Grounded in realist metatheory and principles, the scaffold reduces ambiguity, provides a backbone for empirical analysis, and favours mechanism-based explanation. We suggest that generating theoretically interesting and practically adequate knowledge on organized system change requires attention to three system realms: First, the subjectively constructed problem realm of systems concerned with processes of evaluating and problematizing situations. Second, the objectively constituted situational realm that attends to factual characteristics of situations and their dynamics of change. And third, the realm of causality understood as the mechanisms that generate both the objective characteristics of situations and the subjective criteria by which situations are evaluated as problems. In concluding, we reflect on the topics of boundaries and power as two promising areas for theorizing organized system change.
Profitable business models and market creation in the context of deep poverty: A strategic view
(2007)
The bottom of the pyramid (BOP) in the global distribution of income has been promoted as a significant opportunity for companies to grow profitably. Under the BOP approach, poor people are identified as potential customers who can be served if companies learn to fundamentally rethink their existing strategies and business models. This involves acquiring and building new resources and capabilities and forging a multitude of local partnerships. However, current BOP literature remains relatively silent about how to actually implement such a step into the unknown. We use two BOP cases to illustrate a strategic framework that reduces managerial complexity. In our view, existing capabilities and existing local BOP models can be leveraged to build new markets that include the poor and generate sufficient financial returns for companies to justify investments.
À l’heure où tout nouveau débouché est un enjeu stratégique de taille, peut-on ignorer à la masse de consommateurs des pays du Sud ? Focus réalisé d’après « Profitable Business Models and Market Creation in the Context of Deep Poverty: A Strategic View », de Christian Seelos et Johanna Mair, Academy of Management Perspectives, novembre 2007, et l’interview d’Iqbal Quadir, fondateur et directeur du Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship (US), février 2009.
This study advances research on organizational efforts to tackle multidimensional, complex, and interlinked societal challenges. We examine how social inequality manifests in small-scale societies, and illustrate how it inheres in entrenched patterns of behavior and interaction. Asking how development programs can be organizing tools to transform these patterns of inequality, we use a program sponsored by an Indian non-governmental organization as our empirical window and leverage data that we collected over a decade. We identify “scaffolding” as a process that enables and organizes the transformation of behavior and interaction patterns. Three interrelated mechanisms make the transformation processes adaptive and emerging alternative social orders robust: (1) mobilizing institutional, social organizational, and economic resources; (2) stabilizing new patterns of interaction that reflect an alternative social order; and (3) concealing goals that are neither anticipated nor desired by some groups. Through this analysis, we move beyond conventional thinking on unintended consequences proposed in classic studies on organizations, complement contemporary research about how organizations effect positive social change by pursuing multiple goals, and develop portable insights for organizational efforts in tackling inequality. This study provides a first link between the study of organizational efforts to alleviate social problems and the transformation of social systems.
This case portrays a complex set of circumstances that frames Sekem's decisions to further grow and develop the initiative along its historical path of holistic development in the social, economic and cultural spheres. The case documents the history of the initiative and lays out the major constituents and their internal and external relations. Sekem was founded by Ibrahim Abouleish, an Egyptian who had been living, studying and working in Austria prior to his return to Egypt in 1977, the year he established Sekem. Literally starting from nothing, ie, a piece of desert land north of Cairo, Abouleish showed tremendous resourcefulness, creativity, and perseverance. Driven by a strong belief in his personal mission, Abouleish built up the Sekem initiative that in 2003 consisted of three main parts: the Sekem group of companies, the Egyptian Society for Cultural Development and the Co-operative of Sekem Employees, together employing more than 2,000 people. Sekem was also a hub managing a large network of associated farmers and companies within Egypt and abroad. It also ran a medical centre for the local community, a kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, an adult training centre, special needs education programmes, and an academy for applied arts and sciences. In 2003, Abouleish won the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize', in recognition of Sekem being the blueprint of the organisation of the 21st century. Abouleish has also received an award as an 'outstanding social entrepreneur' from the Schwab Foundation of the World Economic Forum. Abouleish's objective was to heal Egyptian society from the wounds of the past and to initiate holistic development able to create economic, social and cultural value in a sustainable manner.
Over the last few years many business schools have been active in developing courses on social entrepreneurship. The case studies used are typically based on non-profit initiatives aimed at alleviating social problems in the community. Yet social entrepreneurship is not limited in scope and structure. It is neither geographically nor culturally centered. To avoid the dilemma of defining what social entrepreneurship is or what it is not, we argue that the most fruitful approach is to adopt a specific perspective that illuminates the role and the unique contribution of social entrepreneurship. The perspective we propose is 'sustainable development'. This approach also permits the positioning of social entrepreneurship alongside existing organizations that participate in the global efforts to achieve sustainable development. We describe initiatives by social entrepreneurs and established corporations, highlight the social, economic and environmental impact, and draw out commonalities from the examples given.
The term “social entrepreneurship” (SE) is used to refer to the rapidly growing number of organizations that have created models for efficiently catering to basic human needs that existing markets and institutions have failed to satisfy. Social entrepreneurship combines the resourcefulness of traditional entrepreneurship with a mission to change society. One social entrepreneur, Ibrahim Abouleish, recently received the “Alternative Nobel Prize” for his Sekem initiative; in 2004, e-Bay founder Jeff Skoll donated 4.4 million pounds to set up a social entrepreneurship research center; and many social entrepreneurs have mingled with their business counterparts at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Social entrepreneurship offers insights that may stimulate ideas for more socially acceptable and sustainable business strategies and organizational forms. Because it contributes directly to internationally recognized sustainable development (SD) goals, social entrepreneurship may also encourage established corporations to take on greater social responsibility.
Social entrepreneurship. The contribution of individual entrepreneurs to sustainable development
(2004)
Social entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that has resisted attempts to establish a clear definition. A focus on organizational structures and/or what constitutes a worthy social cause has created a diverse set of terminology. Observing the positive social impact of entrepreneurs catering to basic needs, this paper recognizes their unique role in efficiently contributing to the achievement of sustainable development goals. From this perspective, the term social can be much better defined. The frameworks proposed in this paper should guide much-needed further research and facilitate decision making about more focused support from a financial as well as a learning perspective.
Outlining both historical foundations and the latest research trends, this Research Handbook offers a unique and cutting-edge overview of the numerous avenues to responsible management.
Opening with a conceptual mapping of the field, thought leaders such as Henry Mintzberg and Archie Carroll present foundational and controversial views. Frameworks such as sustainability management, responsible leadership, humanistic and biomimetic management are introduced. Glocal approaches include responsible management with Chinese characteristics, West African Yoruba, and American Pragmatism. Exploring frameworks for the responsible management process, such as theories of practice, and for responsible management learning and innovation, readers are introduced to key methods responsible management research, such as participatory action research.
Groundbreaking in scope and depth, this Handbook caters to the responsible management research community, particularly to the Academy of Management and to United Nations PRME signatory business schools. Policymakers and practitioners will benefit from its insight into the latest advances in responsible management research.
Social entrepreneurship can be a powerful tool for corporations to gain entry and build loyalty in developing markets. While economic growth has led to tremendous improvements in personal freedoms and well-being for people in industrialised societies, it has left too many behind. The images of hunger, disease and human misery refuse to disappear from our television screens. How can growth be made more sustainable while at the same time including and benefiting all of society? The paradox is painful: while traditional markets are saturated, billions of people are desperately waiting for companies to cater to their most basic needs and wants. Social entrepreneurs act as change agents that enable the poor to participate in economic life. Entrepreneurs invent business models that can be scaled up and possibly repeated elsewhere: the Grameen Bank model has been replicated all over the world, with huge success. Social entrepreneurship initiatives also constitute local resources that lend themselves to new configurations for novel forms of value creation.
The embeddedness of social entrepreneurship: Understanding variation across geographic communities
(2011)
Social enterprise organizations (SEOs) arise from entrepreneurial activities with the aim of achieving social goals. SEOs have been identified as alternative and/or complementary to the actions of governments and international organizations to address poverty and poverty-related social needs. Using a number of illustrative cases, we explore how variation of local institutional mechanisms shapes the local “face of poverty” in different communities and how this relates to variations in the emergence and strategic orientations of SEOs. We develop a model of the productive opportunity space for SEOs as a basis of and an inspiration for further scholarly inquiry.
Editorial notes in leading management journals have urged scholars to address Grand Challenges (GC) as an opportunity for producing knowledge that matters for society. This review explores whether current conceptualizations of GC support a productive path for management and organizational scholarship by guiding empirical inquiry, facilitating cumulative theory development, and informing practice. We systematically examine scholarly articles, calls for papers, and editorial notes published in management journals for consistency in how researchers use and define the concept of GC and the scope of associated phenomena and attributes. We find three prominent conceptual architectures in use: discursive, family resemblance, and phenomenon driven. The variety and incoherence of current uses of the GC concept and the lack of efforts to improve its analytical competence lead us to suggest its retirement. Instead, we propose building on the enthusiasm around GC research and using GC as a term to define research principles that collectively help align research efforts and improve theoretical development and practice. The principles we propose capture a genuine origin story for management research on GC.
The Sekem Initiative
(2005)
Water is Power
(2017)
Can we continue to categorically dismiss consumers in Southern countries at a time when companies are struggling to find new markets? Based on « Profitable Business Models and Market Creation in the Context of Deep Poverty: A Strategic View », by Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair, Academy of Management Perspectives, November 2007, and the interviews of Iqbal Quadir, founder and director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT (USA), February 2009.
When Innovation Goes Wrong
(2016)
Efforts by social enterprises to develop novel interventions receive a great deal of attention. Yet these organizations often stumble when it comes to turning innovation into impact. As a result, they fail to achieve their full potential. Here’s a guide to diagnosing and preventing several “pathologies” that underlie this failure.