Entrepreneurship is often described as finding solutions to real pains. Some entrepreneurs have taken that mantra to another level to address some of the gravest problems in the world such as poverty, lack of education and access to drinking water. This phenomenon has also grown as an academic discipline and scholars are hoping their research can help further the impact of these social entrepreneurs.
Melissa Power remembers a time when doing laundry came down to a choice: Do I buy groceries and pay these bills or should I take some of that money to a laundromat? Today, Power is the founder of For The Love Of Laundry, a social enterprise that sponsors free laundry services for low-income families with proceeds from its homemade, all-natural laundry products.
She shared her inspiring entrepreneurial journey to a room filled with scholars working in the field of social entrepreneurship. It was an opportunity for academics and practitioners to see how their respective work could help each other.
With the growing popularity of social entrepreneurship as a phenomenon consumers want to support, the subject has flourished into a field of academic scholarship. To help continue the conversation, the Ivey Business School’s Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship hosted many of the top minds in the field at an international academic symposium on April 6-8, 2017.
The symposium, titled the Journal of Business Venturing Special Issue Developmental Symposium on “Enterprise Before and Beyond Benefit: A Transdisciplinary Research Agenda for Prosocial Organizing,” brought together over 20 of the leading academics in the field, representing institutions such as the University of Cambridge, University of Pennsylvania and the Technical University of Munich.
Translating to the real world
Ivey Professor and symposium co-director Oana Branzei mentions that the growth of social entrepreneurship (also widely described as ‘prosocial organizing’) is a natural extension of entrepreneurship as an academic field. It is a sentiment echoed by Jeff McMullen, professor of entrepreneurship at Indiana University Bloomington’s Kelley School of Business:
“We want to see people always pushing the boundaries to what entrepreneurship means; what can it do, what can it be? Prosocial organizing fits beautifully because it's basically asking questions of are there better ways to make people feel more engaged, make them feel part of a community while pursuing their own self-actualization.”
Due to the propensity of academia to explore more abstract concepts, the symposium’s co-directors made a conscious decision to root the conversation in the real world.
“With so many pressing social concerns, it isn't good enough for us to pontificate without rooting our discussions in reality," said Simon C. Parker, Ivey professor and co-director of the symposium.
To that end, the symposium showcased a number of organizations, such as Power’s For The Love Of Laundry, as well as other social enterprises, benefit corporations and non-profit charities. Other organizations featured included Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Growing Chefs.
The symposium also had keynote speeches by Kelsey Ramsden, MBA ’04, Michelle Quintyn, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries and Olympic Gold-Medalist Adam van Koeverden.
The symposium was co-sponsored by the Jake Jabs College of Business & Entrepreneurship – Montana State University, Hill School of Business – University of Regina, Western University, and Ivey’s Dean’s Office.
Laying a foundation for the conversation
The symposium will pave the way for a Special Issue with the Journal of Business Venturing, the world’s leading entrepreneurship journal listed in the Financial Times 50 academic journal list.
“You need a special issue to jump start (the conversation) so there is a toe hold in the literature,” said McMullen. “One of the problems in our academic approach is that you have to anchor the justification for what you are studying in the past and it's difficult to get something new started without us doing something like this,” said McMullen, who is also the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Business Venturing.
The Special Issue is the first concerted effort to map out new developments in the social entrepreneurship space. “The success of this event (Symposium) will be evidenced in the diversity and quality of accepted papers for the special issue, as well as the insights from the editorial pieces,” said Edward Gamble, Assistant Professor at Montana State University and co-editor of the Special Issue.
Parker was impressed by the range of interesting topics currently being explored in the area, as well the depth, quality and methodological rigor involved in these pursuits. “There’s rapid growth of this rather tight research community and there is potential for it to grow further,” said Parker.
The future of the field
The symposium was followed by a Thematic Doctoral Consortium with 28 PhD Candidates from across the globe, including seven representatives from Ivey. They were paired with 18 faculty members who provided mentorship and feedback on their research. The consortium was sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Claudia Moura Romero from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica is researching social entrepreneurs’ motivations and how they align with the goals of their ventures as well as their impact on performance. She found the experience a great opportunity to broaden her knowledge base and network with faculty and fellow PhDs in the field.
Jocelyn Leitzinger from McGill University was eager to be part of the doctoral consortium when she saw that many of the top minds in the field were listed in attendance. Being a smaller conference allowed her the opportunity to have more extensive conversations with faculty she was constantly reading in her own research. “It’s nice to have an opportunity to get time with the exact people you want to talk to,” said Leitzinger.
With an eager and enthusiastic crop of young researchers, Parker and Branzei are excited for the future of the field. As social entrepreneurs continue to find answers to our toughest social issues, scholars can continue to arm them with their findings and best practices to strengthen their chances of success.
Journal of Business Venturing - Thematic Consortium
Best Paper Awards
- Jocelyn Leitzinger (McGill University) - Who Moved My Movement? Conflict in the Evolution of Movement-Driven Markets
- Haley Beer (University of Warwick) - In the ‘social’ we trust? Uncovering relationship dynamics involved in the generation of social outcomes
- Tony Xiao (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) - A Motivational Approach to Social Enterprises
- Angelique Slade Shantz (York University) - The Effectiveness of Pro-Social Motivation on Non-Traditional Workforces: A Social Comparison Perspective
- Yusi Turell (University of New Hampshire) - Social Entrepreneurs as Institutional Entrepreneurs: Embedded actors of transformative social change