http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/top_five_controversies_in_social_entrepreneurship
Nathaniel Whittemore wrote a thought provoking article (the link above), that talks about the five controversies in Social Entrepreneurship. In this blog post, I will write about my opinions and point of views on some of the five questions raised, and how we view the world of Social Entrepreneurship. Today, Social Entrepreneurship is one of the most misunderstood phrases, and many people do not clearly know what the real purpose of it.
1. Do visionary individuals or collective action drive social change?
Each member of the collective action is a visionary individual. I feel that both visionary individuals and collective action drive social change. However, humans relate more easily to individuals and thus, I can conclude that social change is driven more effectively by individuals rather than collective action. I feel that we should also note that there is another group of people (collective action) that aids in social change. Thus we should remember to highlight this group of people as well, other than noticing the visionary individuals only.
2. How narrowly should “Social Entrepreneurship” be defined and to whom should the term be applied?
In my opinion, I feel that the debate of what defines Social Entrepreneurship will definitely be an ongoing one, that will last for a long period of time. Many people feel that Social Entrepreneurship should not be defined too narrowly or too broadly. However, I feel that defining Social Entrepreneurship is just a waste of time. Why, you might ask. Social Entrepreneurship should be a starting point for the classification of what makes a social entrepreneur successful and capable, rather than an endpoint. Therefore if we continue to debate about what the true meaning of Social Entrepreneurship is, we are actually focusing on the wrong part of the whole issue.
4. Do social entrepreneurs address root causes or just symptoms of social problems?
Social entrepreneurs recognises a social problem and they have a deep understanding of both the root causes and the symptoms of social problems that they are trying to address. For example, social organisations are able to help, or at least leave an impact of the lives of people. Although these social entrepreneurs might seem that they are addressing only the symptoms of social problems at first, there might be results in the long run that would benefit the people.
