Can social entrepreneurship play a role in building sustainable communities? Discuss

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Social Entrepreneurship’s Role in Sustainable Communities
In the past two decades, ‘social entrepreneurship’ has been a rising concept. Thurik points out to the fact that in the last decade, so many social enterprises have emerged and some disappeared. At the same time, the concept of the viability of social entrepreneurship has been embraced by educational institutions for research marking the great importance of this concept. (Thurik 1) This is rightly so because of the sharp rise in poverty and social injustices awareness. With the increase of broadband internet and personal computers, geographical barriers have been demolished, and people are able to experience what are the challenges of diverse people around the globe. This has prompted numerous individuals to establish innovative ventures that are geared to solving various social problems throughout the world. Social entrepreneurship is thus defined as the act of starting up an innovative enterprise with the aim of addressing a chronic social problem. (Thurik 5) Jeff Skoll had predicted that there is need for restructuring of all business forms in order to achieve meaningful growth with Omidyar adding the fact that the world did not require just corporate responsibility programs bur new programs completely dedicated to social change. (Elkington & Hartigan xii)
Currently, social entrepreneurship takes two prominent positions. On the one hand, it is directed at solving the challenges of the marginalized and impoverished communities around the globe.

For example, in the developed nations, one of the most persistent problems is homelessness. The cost of rent has been rising exponentially while stunted economic growth has led to regular wages for most of the working class. As a result, more and more people are being thrown out of their homes. Many social entrepreneurs focus on alleviating the challenges of the homeless by providing them with employment, their essential amenities or both. The second most prominent aspect of social entrepreneurship is caring for the environment. It has become increasingly clear to any rational individual that the earth in not an infinite resource. There is thus the need to conserve what is left and in the process allow it to rejuvenate itself to sustain future generations. In most cases, social entrepreneurship embraces both dimensions as complimentary to each other. The needs do not need to be physical. In Britain and across the globe, the psychological burden on refugees is becoming a potentially dangerous for communities. Understanding this, Woolf began a couple of cafes like the one is Bristol in order to provide the community with the essential time alone to serve the needs of the immigrants through partially.
The main aim of a social entrepreneur is to ensure the well-being of the people and the ecological balance of an environment. There are many ways in which their efforts are similar to the conventional entrepreneurs. Primarily, the basic entrepreneurial characteristic of impetus to new and viable ideas is present in both categories. The zeal for success and continuous innovation is also present. However, the two classes of entrepreneurs are also set apart by the fundamental principles of businesses. Social entrepreneurship differentiates from the rest by what is sometimes referred to as their ‘unreasonableness.’ The chief reason for this definition is the fact that in most cases, individuals who pioneer these projects ignore all the fundamental indications that show business will not succeed in an area to start up their business. They, therefore, establish potential in areas where no one would expect to build anything useful. Paul Light defines social entrepreneurs to be synonymous with the act of a dramatic risk-taker who is willing to against the tide and produce an equally dramatic social change. (Light 1) The social entrepreneurs are also identified through their zeal for measuring their impact. These individuals do not want to establish idle projects but want to be absolutely sure that these ventures are indeed accomplishing the target functions. As Sharma observes, there is an urgent need for competitive marketing, self- financing and efficiently and therefore these groups pride themselves in attaining success without any external help. (Sharma1) To achieve their goal, these entrepreneurs have a firm belief in the collective power of every individual in the community and a ‘positive impatience.’ Positive impatience normally denotes their ability to initiate change instead of waiting for change to be initiated by other people.
Due to the broadness of the social challenges that require solutions, it has been challenging for experts to come to a consensus on the concrete definition of the trait. (Thurik 2) However, its immense benefits are already measurable and examinable from the huge projects that have been conducted both at a local and global level. These traits will be used extensively in this paper to analyze whether the promised sustainability of these ventures is indeed worthwhile. By conducting extensive scholarly research, the study will establish the benefits as well as pitfalls for social entrepreneurship in order to determine its viability conclusively.
The proper starting point is probably to identify the essential aspects of sustainability. Sustainability defines the fact of having enough to fend for the current generation while leaving enough for the future generations mainly by conducting activities which allow for the rejuvenation of the earth. In anthropological economy, experts often describe primitive communities as the best example of affluent communities. The chief aim of establishing any venture is to attain affluence. This is a social status where no one is deprived of basic needs. While it was harder to achieve a surplus in traditional communities, the communal ownership of everything and the sparce populations of millions of square kilometers ensured that everyone had the basic needs. On the other hand, industrialization introduced a prejudiced scarcity. In what Karl Marx defined as the bourgeois of the working class, owners of capital exploited the working class who have to continue working earn by substantial income. Also, the introduction of capitalism brought about an increased narcissism where individuals aimed at increasing personal wealth at the expense of everything else.
This is the chief determinant of the proficiency of social entrepreneurship. It aims to bring back the form of affluence experienced by the traditional communities. This means that they have different parameters of measuring success when compared to other entrepreneurs. This is one of the primary reasons why the practice may be considered a prime success. Its chief goal is to ensure that the need of the people is catered for completely. This should be the aim of any business. In many economies, the biggest problem is not that the earth does not provide enough resources to support the masses but the challenge is the distribution. The fact that there is a progressively widening wealth distribution increases chances for sustainability. While the poor are struggling to survive, there rich are having too much to store for numerous generations to come. Conventional entrepreneurship encourages groups to immerse more and more at the expense of the poor. On the other hand, social enterprise aims at distributing this wealth equally in order to ensure that everyone can live a dignified and affordable life.
As a result, a social entrepreneur may introduce different policies that may seem like a fail. For example, instead of hiring skilled personnel to run an organization, this practice will align to training the homeless or marginalized in the community and then working with them. This may reduce the initial output of the company. In addition to this, since the chief aim of to minimize the misery of these communities, the entrepreneur will pay the individuals more than what could be given to individuals with this level of skills. While this will reduce the profit for the organization, it will distribute all the income to the people working around. This increases sustainability in numerous ways. First of all, as already discusses, the distribution of wealth ensures that everyone has their needs taken care of.
Secondly, while it may be though that leaving an investment to non-skilled workers may lead to collapse, the vise versa is true. Social entrepreneurship creates an organization culture aligned with mutual respect and concern for human beings. This culture creates a sense of belonging and thus a need to sacrifice personal effort for the organization. It brings about and aspect of Distributed Leadership which has been proven to increase efficiency dramatically through the replacement of leadership concentrated on an individual to ore systematic leadership. (Bolden 251) It is, therefore, important that these organizations emphasize the importance of the project to the people to ensure that the workers understand the objective of the group. (Abu-Saifan 25) When this is achieved, these enterprises become even more successful than those where the workers engage only out of duty.
Additionally, social entrepreneurship eliminates the need for unhealthy competition witnessed in business today. This reduces the need for numerous vices. First of all, there is no need for corrupt maneuvers in securing permits and tenders. The concern for the social injustice is likely to lead to the conclusion that corruption is one of the sources of misery for the community. When these things are issued in a fair way, there are dual advantages. On one side, the organizations enhance the goal of distributing wealth equitably to every individual proportionally to their efforts. This in turns increases, the enthusiasm with which local people produce goods because they recognize the opportunity to market them reasonably. On the other hand, it also ensures that the business acquires only the best resources for a particular event ant at fair prices. This is important for the business because many institutions have literary failed because few people collude with the management to procure inferior products at exorbitant prices. This also increases the sustainability of communities under social entrepreneurship.
An important part of reducing the constant completion is the fact that it minimizes the pressure for exploiting natural resources. Since social entrepreneurship is established with the common goal of benefiting every individual, it will be more easily convinced to cater for the environment. It will, therefore, foster actions that ensure ecological balance and thus protect the interest of future generations. The vitality of environmental sustainability has brought social entrepreneurship to other profit oriented businesses. Many of these originations have established social and environmental departments which cater for the needs of the community and the environment. This is a crucial step towards sustainability. The origin of this move is the fact that social entrepreneurship creates awareness on consumers on the need to have ecologically friendly practices. In return, consumers begin boycotting products that are produced in unhealthy conditions. This way, social entrepreneurship is forcing even for profit organizations to take responsibility for any damages that may result from their operations. This increases sustainability through increasing the resources available for social and ecological protection.
Sometimes consumers do not have the freedom to choose what they buy due to financial constraints. This encourages producers to indulge in unhealthy practices which are exploitative to workers. Social entrepreneurship reduces the vulnerability of communities. This will reduce the ability of big corporations from exploiting them enabling them to fend for their dependents. When the livelihood of individuals in a community is increased, it means that more people are able to access a healthy diet, medical care, proper sanitations, and education. (Abu-Saifan 24) This will enable future generations to access privileged positions without necessarily depending on communal programs established by the social entrepreneurs. Education especially has been defined at the single factor that can increase the possibility of upward social mobility. When social entrepreneurship enhances the chances for education to the masses, it puts them at a good leverage to negotiate for better conditions in the future. This means that the positive effects are felt for many generations, and this is sustainability.
It is also important to note that social entrepreneurship is all about innovation. Enthusiasts notice some deficiency in a community and improvise new methods of solving the challenge. As such, in most cases, social entrepreneurship involves starting up newer technologies that are able to provide for the necessities of the people using the locally available resources. The inventions also often concentrate on the reduction of the energy employed in the provision of a particular service. Use of more efficient methods means that the people are able to use what is available for longer. (Martin & Osberg 5) This is in line with the proposed goal of allowing the each tie to rejuvenate, distributing resources to everyone and therefore achieving sustainability.
Economic and ecological balance is not the only positive gain that arises from a shift towards social entrepreneurship. This practice also has a positive effect on the psychosocial frameworks. When people share a common objective, they have to work together. This increases the cohesion between people resulting in concrete communal structures. Studies indicate that the more individualistic communities become, the higher the rate of psychological anomalies. The rate of suicide is very high in the west where almost everyone has their basic needs covered. Anthropological economics has once again expressed clearly the reason for this predicament. Wealth is substantially crucial for existence. As such, the more wealth one has, the ore comfortable their lives become and therefore presumably the ore happy they become. However, it is suggested that this is only true up to a certain level. When an individual possesses all the wealth required for the satisfaction of his basic needs, an additional amount dies not produce any corresponding rise in happiness. This is the primary challenge to modern capitalism after the age of industrialization people presume that material wealth and happiness are directly proportional. However, social entrepreneurship recognizes the temporal viability of benefits accrued from additional wealth. It, therefore, seeks to distribute this wealth to everyone. This is more sustainable because it does not degenerate into stiff competitions but works for the benefit of every individual in the community. Wolcott identifies social enterprise as a winning solution to challenges since it fills in all the gaps neglected by the government and corporate world catering for the disabled, the perennially unemployed and even those without any employable skills. (Wolcott 1)
Finally, the ‘positive impatience’ of social entrepreneurs is something that compounds the sustainability of social entrepreneurship. These elements mean that social entrepreneurs believe in the capability of people to change their own challenges. This is opposed to the idea of waiting for policy makers and the government to change things. This is vital because, in the recent past, governments have had to rapidly reduce their revolving funds and resources allocated to solving communal challenges. This creates an urgent necessity for a solution to emerge from within the community rather than outside. (Bielefield 73) When change originates from within the communities, it is undoubtedly more sustainable than change implemented from without. One of the reasons for this is that the people already understand the challenge and to participate since the onset. The second is that people own a communal service more and are willing to participate in in keeping watch over it. This will reduce any vandalism within the organization. Social entrepreneurship increases the people’s participation in solving their challenges. This way, it stimulates their reasoning and engagement to be open to seeking solutions within the community. This increases a community’s internal sustainability. More and more of the solutions are satisfied from within. This also means that more and more of the resources are used within the institutions. (What Makes A Social Enterprise A Social Enterprise? 1) If a company can produce and spend what it needs, then it will have achieved sustainability.
This does not mean that social entrepreneurship is devoid of any challenges. One of the biggest challenges is the fact that it does not follow the wealth of information in the field. This means that there is a great probability of failure if proper measures are not taken. Failure of social enterprises results in even worse problems compared to profit enterprises. This is because profit enterprises only affect individuals in the community and most cases; these individuals are able to restart new investments. On the other hand, the onset of a social enterprise results in the agitation of the masses and the promise of hope. When these ventures fail, the community is more dejected than before and more unwilling to restarting a new venture. (Martin & Osberg 3)
Amount the leading causes of failure for such ventures is a lack of proper management. This arises primarily when the bearer of the vision is not able to manage the enterprise singly. The people who may be elected to assist in the implementation are unlikely to have the same zest for results as the entrepreneurs. The phenomena can also arise due to lack of accountability. Unlike formal organizations, social organizations belong to the people and thus no one is directly liable for the loss. In fact, in the case of failure, no one bears too many financial losses. Targets and pressure are sometimes necessary to ensure people optimize their capabilities at work. Social entrepreneurship thus becomes a brooding place for lax operations and mediocre services. However, Pearce comments that it is the wrong notion to imagine that social enterprises needs to mimic the structure of conventional business emphasizing on the need to establish a completely new dynamic for guiding it. (Pearce 2)
In conclusion, social entrepreneurship is a new but prominent concept that will ensure the continued sustainability of communities. There are several factors that have been pushing the business stages towards social entrepreneurship. One of them if the fact that most of the government have been reducing the funds allocated from solving local problems. On the other hand, there is increase inefficiency in the management of both governmental and non-governmental social enterprises. This pushes revolutionaries into entrepreneurship because they feel they do not have an option but to find solutions for their survival. There other factors are social. First, there is a rising demand to have the rapidly growing private sector to take up responsibility for its operations and help in building communities where it operates. This has led to the mushrooming of social offices within big multinationals. In addition to this, those who own the successful private sector enterprises are becoming overwhelmingly rich. This produces an impetus to philanthropy. The increased visibility of social challenges around the globe also increases the desire to use the increasingly easy to fabricate technology to solve the challenges of the community.
The chief aim of social entrepreneurship is to solve the needs of every individual in a community. This is sharply contrasted with conventional entrepreneurship where efforts are solely directed towards the generation of profit. Individuals who engage in social entrepreneurship have a great zeal for change and belief in the vitality of communities towards solving their problems. This leads to the establishment of ingestions that are run within the community. These organizations enhance sustainability by their distribution of wealth to the entire community. Today, grave social status differences exist between the rich and the poor. Theses imbalances induce extreme shortage and poverty since the poor have to work extensively for the rich to earn a living. If everyone just harbored what is essential for life; there would be sufficient wealth for everyone and for future generations. This is what the idea of social entrepreneurship brings about around the globe. In solving communal problems at the community level, investors are encouraging strong impetus towards change. Change is born from within the community rather than externally. There is increased cohesiveness among the people. This builds stronger structural units and reduces psychosocial challenges. Social enterprises tend to have a greater urgency towards innovations that arises from the need for improved efficacy. It is also closely aligned to environmental management. There is the need to ensures that the practice conducted allow for the rejuvenation of the earth and sustainability of its vitality. All these measures are essential in determining the sustainability of communities. Social entrepreneurship has this led to a more efficient mode of distribution of resources to every individual in a community and therefore encouraging sustainable communities across the globe.

Works Cited
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