Narrow Results

Service learning has been identified as a suitable approach to teach social entrepreneurship. However, in order to design service learning in an appropriate way, it is necessary to better understand why students want to become a social entrepreneur as opposed to a traditional entrepreneur. Thus, this study aims at identifying distinct student motives for preferring social entrepreneurship. According to our research, reasons typically mentioned by students who prefer a social entrepreneurship career over a commercial entrepreneurship career belonged to the following categories: impact, personal motives, and considering social and economic aspects. From this understanding, we derive recommendations for the design of service learning in social entrepreneurship programs. We hope that these recommendations will contribute to a student-oriented design of service learning that incorporates students’ own motives.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the importance of relational leadership for a social business initiative in rural Uganda. The author follows the case of the Hope Development Initiative (HDI) that supports (i) female farmers to become entrepreneurs as well as (ii) the development of the region. The study aims to illuminate relational leadership theory, particularly how it is applied in a specific context. Data were gathered during a ten-day research expedition to Northern Uganda. The study first presents obstacles the HDI faces in terms of lack of resources as well as socio-cultural dynamics limiting its organizational processes. Afterward, a framework of HDI’s processes of relational leadership serves to analyze and structure the results, thereby demonstrating how HDI actors manage to circumvent these obstacles based on building relationships with critical actors from the stakeholder environment. The case indicates that relational leadership should be seen as one of the most critical organizational capabilities to access resources for value creation in rural Uganda when actors from the stakeholder environment hold these required resources. The study demonstrates how relational leadership incorporating actors from the stakeholder environment on the micro level affects the success of the respective organization and development of the region on the macro level.

This paper introduces the maximization of installed capacity instead of profit maximization, as an element that allows for understanding the economic behavior of Informal Social Enterprise (ISE) in the market. The reconsideration of the theoretical framework that explains the competitive behavior of this type of firm, according to the Social Business Type 2 (SB2) Yunus proposal or necessity-driven entrepreneurship, is important because they are recognized as a mechanism to mitigate the poverty effects of recessionary period faults in the distribution of wealth. The results obtained through the contrast between theoretical evidence and the essential assumptions of industrial organization theory suggests that ISEs have a Cournot competition behavior.

This research presents empirical results about the importance of tax morale in the probability of tax compliance in social businesses. It highlights the relevance of increasing the intrinsic value to the social business owner on paying taxes, instead of the traditional approach of increasing punishment, to reduce non-compliance. The paper suggests changing the focus question from “Why don’t they pay taxes?” to “Why, despite the low probability of being punished for not paying taxes, do some social business owners comply with their tax contribution?”. The main results of the research point out that factors such as public expenditure in economic development increases the probability of tax compliance in social businesses, whereas public expenditure in social programs decreases this probability.

China is a country of over one billion people. All of those people need to eat every day. And, not only eat but eat well. Unfortunately, over the past decade, a series of high-profile food safety scandals have deteriorated the country’s confidence in the quality of its food. People are skeptical about everything from meat to lettuce to cooking oil. What can be done? Many, who feel the food industry is too far corrupted, say “mei ban fa” (没办法), or “nothing can be done.”

However, all hope is not lost. There are entrepreneurs and innovative business leaders who are taking strong action to counter this poor public perception of China’s food industry. They see this social problem as a responsible business opportunity and are setting a new precedent in farming practice in China.