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Workshop on "Social Entrepreneurship as a Vehicle for Sustainability"

Workshop Organizers:

Nikolay Dentchev, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and KULeuven

Corresponding workshop organizer

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, KU Leuven

Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

tel: +32-477.91.71.21
mail: nikolay.dentchev@gmail.com

Romana Rauter, University of Graz

Rupert Baumgartner, University of Graz

Yulia Snihur, Toulouse Business School

Jan Jonker, Radboud University Nijmegen and Toulouse Business School

Social entrepreneurship has gained substantial importance recently (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skillern, 2006). This is the result of well-known initiatives such as, for example, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (42,3 billion USD Asset Trust Endowment), Ashoka (network of 3.000 social entrepreneurs from 70 countries), and the Schwab Foundation (giving platform to the leading 260 social entrepreneurs on the World Economic Forum). But most importantly, social entrepreneurship is appealing with its attention to social and environmental issues. These issues might be most challenging to our societies, and yet social entrepreneurs approach them as if these were business opportunities. In this sense, they build business models that provide solid and self-sustaining solutions to well-targeted problems facing society and the natural environment.

Academics have started to study business models more scrupulously in the last 15 years. Several definitions of business models have been proposed in the literature. Amit and Zott (2012: 42) define the business model as "a system of interconnected and interdependent activities that determine the way the company does business with its customers, partners, and vendors." Casadesus-Masanell and Zhu (2013: 464) define new business models as the "search for new logics of the firm, new ways to create and capture value for its stakeholders, and focusing, primarily, on finding new ways to generate revenues and to define value propositions for customers, suppliers, and partners". Markides (2006: 20) speaks of the discovery of fundamentally different business models in existing businesses:  "To qualify as an innovation, the new business model must enlarge the existing economic pie, either by attracting new customers into the market or by encouraging existing customers to consume more." Teece (2010: 172) mentions that "the essence of a business model is in defining the manner by which the enterprise delivers value to customers, entices customers to pay for value, and converts those payments to profit." As explained in a recent literature review, most scholars agree that the business model emphasizes a system-level, holistic approach to explaining how firms do business, that is how value is created and captured (Zott, Amit, and Massa, 2011).

The business models of social entrepreneurs are in the first place oriented to resolving social and environmental issues. In this vein, profit generation is not always the predominant concern of social entrepreneurs. The missing centrality of profit generation in the business models of social entrepreneurs poses some intriguing questions for researchers. Business models have been described as tools for creating and capturing value (Zott, Amit, and Massa, 2011) in the received literature. In the words of Magretta (2002: 87), one of the "fundamental questions every manager must ask [is]: How do we make money in this business?" This perspective on business models is quite widespread in both management theory and practice. From this perspective, the result of value creation is often evaluated, either implicitly or explicitly, by the financial bottom line of businesses. Even the well-known strategic management perspective of Porter and Kramer (2011) on shared value creation, with a simultaneous attention to economic and social progress, acknowledges that "our recognition of the transformative power of shared value is still in its genesis." In other words, it is not yet well studied or understood how alternative business models of social entrepreneurs function and how social entrepreneurs manage to create value without always generating only profit in their ventures. Nevertheless, it is about value creation and earning money but the priorities might be in a different order compared to classic for-profit business models. Our call-for-abstracts aims to encourage contributions to the knowledge of the mechanisms behind business models of social entrepreneurs that enable solutions to social and environmental issues.

Types of contributions solicited

We welcome theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions. In addition, we would like to encourage scholarly studies from a broad variety of methodologies (e.g. qualitative and quantitative), and from a broad variety of scholarly disciplines (e.g. management, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, organization theory, to mention a few). This call for papers stimulates scholars to elaborate on, but not limit themselves to, the following research questions:

·      Although profit generation is not the focus of social entrepreneurs, no initiative can be developed without a financial budget. What is (or should be) the balance between financial and non-financial bottom lines in the business models of social entrepreneurs?

·      Are business models of social entrepreneurs different from classic for-profit business models? If so, how? Based on which criteria can we (or should we) describe a business model of social entrepreneurs as successful?

·      What are the similarities and differences between business models with main objective profit generation and business models main objective resolving social and environmental issues?

·      What are the mechanisms driving successful business models in social entrepreneurship?

·      How can social entrepreneurs realize "shared value creation" for different customers and partners involved in their business models?

·      Assuming a keen stakeholder attention to the value generation process involved, how do social entrepreneurs coordinate between stakeholders with diverging focus in individual bottom lines (financial and non-financial)?

·      How can social entrepreneurs scale their business models to provide higher impact?

·      Are there limitations to scaling the business models of social entrepreneurs?

·      To what extent are business models of social entrepreneurs solving but also at the same time creating sustainability issues?

·      What is the role of governments in stimulating and/or controlling social entrepreneurship?

·      Is there a specific stakeholder network that could support business models development by social entrepreneurs? Are some countries better at developing such a network than others?

In our endeavor to solicit contributions, we first would like to acknowledge the recent special issues dedicated to the topic of business models and sustainability. With this workshop we would like to stimulate further knowledge development on social entrepreneurship as a vehicle for sustainability.

Practicalities

Workshop participants will be invited to submit abstracts of 1.000 words prior to the IABS 2016 conference. These abstracts will be reviewed by the workshop organizers. In addition, all workshop participants will receive all other papers, with request to read them in advance and to provide feedback. In addition, will share during the workshop relevant references, theories, case studies, data sources, etc. that might be supportive for the further development of the papers. Overall, we aim at creating a constructive environment for developing sound ideas in preparation for a scholarly contribution.

Workshop participants will be offered an opportunity to submit their contributions to a Special Volume in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

References