The Role of Higher Education in Enhancing Social Entrepreneurship

Abstract: Social entrepreneurship and higher education seem to form closer relationships.
This paper concerns with the role of higher education in enhancing social entrepreneurship,
as it is implemented in the context of Dorset, UK and Avalon, Canada. By utilising the
theoretical dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation the paper develops a framework of
interpretation for its empirical context. In summarising its findings, it argues that the role
higher education can play for social entrepreneurship in both cases is highly regarded
however there are a number of hurdles that will need to be overcome.

Keywords: Higher Education; Entrepreneurial Orientation; Social Entrepreneurship;

Bournemouth University, Dorset, UK; Memorial University of Newfoundland, Avalon,
Canada;

1. Introduction
It has been almost a century since Joseph Schumpeter identified the principles of
entrepreneurship as qualities of individual willingness that go beyond everyday routines,
which should support in overcoming inner-personal resistance as well as resistance of the
social environment (Ebner, 2003). Since then entrepreneurship has gone a long way and it is
widely accepted that entrepreneurs today increasingly need to take the initiative in designing
a new approach for their business. This approach concerns everyday acts of work that
contribute to the betterment of people‟s life affected by the business‟s action (Kuratko and
Hodgetts, 2007). The time for a type of entrepreneurship that attributes social aspects has
arrived and it is called social entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship is not a newly defined concept simply because social entrepreneurs
have been around for a long time (Okpara and Halkias, 2011). There is an incremental
acknowledgement of the importance of social entrepreneurship in and out of the business
world nowadays. Beginning with the USA, in 1993 Harvard Business School launched the
“Social Enterprise Initiative”, one of the milestones of this time (Defourny and Nyssens,
2006). Since then other significant foundations have set up training programmes for social
enterprises and social entrepreneurs. However, in the United States social enterprise remains
a very broad and ambiguous concept that refers principally to market-orientated economic
activities serving a social goal (ibid). In Europe, the concept first appeared in the early 1990s
associated with the community and voluntary sectors, following a stimulus that began in Italy
linked to the cooperative political movement. In 2002 there was a sudden reengineering of
the debate about social enterprise in the United Kingdom. The Blair government created the
“Social Enterprise Coalition” and launched the “Social Enterprise Unit”, a governmental
agency in order to improve the knowledge on social enterprises and through this to promote
social entrepreneurship at the national level (Social Enterprise Coalition, 2003; Defourny and
Nyssens, 2006).

The purpose of this paper is then twofold: firstly to identify the scope for development of
social entrepreneurship with regard to higher education and how this could be enhanced by
particular actions of universities today; and secondly to test empirically the theoretical
implications of this statement through the findings of a initial research conducted at
Bournemouth University in Dorset, UK and Memorial University of Newfoundland in
Avalon, Canada. In the light of this, the paper introduces a framework whose utilisation

1
offers opportunities for some positive outcomes to arise whereas blended with some not
applicable ones.

2. On social entrepreneurship and its attributes

Sandler (2010) argues that social entrepreneurship is not a new phenomenon as such but it
has become very significant today, as leveraging entrepreneurial principles are used in order
to solve social issues and make a difference. In this respect, definitions of social
entrepreneurship could be almost exclusively based upon the context it is used for. As Light
(2008: 1) contends:
‘Despite enormous enthusiasm for social entrepreneurship among a new
generation of change makers, the field of social entrepreneurship is not yet a field
per se. It does not have paths to tenure for its young professors, a growing
inventory of quantitative data for its researchers, or a guaranteed source of
private or government funding for its institutions. Its elder scholars are anything
but elderly, or at least they or we think we are not, and its younger scholars have
to balance their interest in social entrepreneurship against work in more
respected fields.’

In the UK context social enterprises compete in the market place like any other business, no
matter their business skills and knowledge to pursue social issues and achieve social goals.
For example, the Trees Group is one of the largest social enterprises in the East Midlands
with a £8 million turnover and more than 120 staff that exist to support its subsidiary
companies in the areas of training, regeneration, education, employment and sustainability
(Social Enterprise Coalition, 2003; The Trees Group, 2008). According to Harding and
Cowing (2004:5) social entrepreneurs are „one species within the genus entrepreneur. They
are entrepreneurs with a social mission‟. In the light of this, social enterprises are „orthodox‟
businesses with social objectives, „whose surpluses are principally re-invested for that
purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to
maximise profit for shareholders and owners‟ (Harding and Cowing, 2004; The Observer,
20.11.2005). This means that the degree of giving back to the community indicates the level
of success for the social enterprise. From a different angle Drayton (2006: 89) argues that
social entrepreneurs need and deserve loyalty. This is because „their work is not a job; it is
their life‟.

Entrepreneurship, and therefore its social aspect involve three principal aspects:
 A vision;
 Someone with leadership skills who can make the vision doable; and
 Willingness to build something that will develop and endure (Thompson et al, 2000).
To this extent, what is asked for is the way to provide an idea and the ensuing actions that can
bring about desirable outcomes. Sykes (1999; cited by Thompson et al, 2000) defines the
following three contributions to the growth of an organisation that can perhaps apply to the
case of a social enterprise:
1. Envisioning a future state in an ambiguous environment;
2. Enacting the vision by giving it direction and purpose and acquiring the necessary
resources;
3. Enabling it to occur by harnessing the support by other people outside the
organisation.

In addition, Defourny (2001; cited by Defourny and Nyssens, 2006: 6) suggest that the social
dimensions of entrepreneurship can perhaps be encapsulated as follows:

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 a. An explicit aim to benefit the community: One of the principal aims of social
enterprises is to serve the community or a specific group of people. In the same
perspective, a feature of social enterprises is their desire to promote a sense of social
responsibility at local level;
b. An initiative launched by a group of citizens: Social enterprises are the result of
collective dynamics involving people belonging to a community or a group that shares
a well defined need or aim;
c. Decision-making power not based on capital ownership: This generally refers to the
principle of “one member, one vote” or at least to a decision-making process in which
the voting power in the governing body with the ultimate decision-making rights is
not distributed according to capital shares;
d. A participatory nature, which involves the various parties affected by the activity:
Representation and participation of users or customers, stakeholder influence on
decision-making and participative management are often important characteristics of
social enterprises;
e. Limited profit distribution: Social enterprises not only include organisations that are
characterised by a total non-distribution constraint, but also organisations which may
distribute profit, but only to a limited extent, thus avoiding profit-maximising
behaviour.

However, measuring social entrepreneurship is a difficult task that cannot be resolved easily.
This is due to the existence of a wide range of definitions about the object of investigation.
Subsequently, not all social entrepreneurs will be working for revenues (either from grants or
sales) and not all of these types of enterprises will become social. To this someone would add
that much of the discussion about social entrepreneurship has at its core a frustration about its
effectiveness. Awareness of this frustration, as a principle driver of change can be very
limited (Harding and Cowing, 2004). The role of higher education institutions in enhancing
social entrepreneurship can be seen in the next section in which a theoretical model of this
role is described and the subsequent implications are presented.

3. Higher education in enhancing social entrepreneurship

3.1. The trend for establishing (social) entrepreneurial education
Higher education (HE) institutions worldwide, in particular the ones in the Western countries,
have gone a long way regarding the type and quality of education they have been offering. To
the author‟s knowledge and personal experience higher education has been required today to
adapt as an objective to go beyond rote learning. This would lead to a process whereby
knowledge and understanding are developed via the transformation of experience within a
realistic environment. The fundamental assumptions of such education include a wide variety
of activities consistent with the dynamic person-environment interaction. This is important in
order to achieve understanding and a kind of „hands-on‟ type of learning (Robinson and
Malach, 2004). Crosby (1995; cited by Robinson and Malach, 2004: 319) suggests that based
on those assumptions higher education becomes more reliable compared to traditional
theories. She asserts that „students educated according to these assumptions are better
prepared to deal with the world than are students educated according to traditional
epistemologies.’ Having said this, study on 15 UK universities that explored the reality of
university-industry relationship concluded some not very positive outcomes. This was due to
the culture shaping these universities that discouraged sharing of intra-organisational
knowledge. This, as it was expected resulted to lack of flexibility and effective collaboration
between universities and industry (Martin and Turner, 2010). However, the focus and
emphasis of the university world often seems to contrast with the urgencies of the business

3
and community-oriented audience. Practitioners are interested in output not process and in
utility that could make them able to apply knowledge that could improve efficiency and
profitability (Hindle et al, 2004). Someone would argue though that this communication gap
between universities and practitioners could be transcended. A way of doing this might well
be promotion of entrepreneurship within higher education. Knowledge offering based on real-
life learning is not always viable and achievable, as it seems.

Nevertheless, entrepreneurial education has existed for a few years now and as Matlay (2006)
points out this was initiated from research that was done on small businesses in the 1980s.
Interestingly though, he continues there were very few designated research findings in this
area most of them focussed upon finance, marketing, internationalisation and the technology
aspects of small business development. This was because education, training, learning and
human resources in smaller firms were not considered important enough to warrant much
attention. Thankfully, things changed substantially in the early 1990s when new and
established researchers began to take an interest in the “human aspect” of entrepreneurship
and small business development. By the late 1990s, these topics had grown considerably in
volume and quality of research. Moreover, the entrepreneurial mission has become
increasingly apparent for quite a few universities in terms of teaching, research and services
to society (Heinonen and Hytti, 2010; Martin and Turner, 2010).

3.2. The (social) entrepreneurial orientation of Higher Education

Therefore, social entrepreneurship should be considered as an emerging area in higher
education learning. According to McElwee and Atherton (2005) there have not been
significant contributions research-wise at least until a few years ago. It seems obvious that for
such an underdeveloped subject area an educational approach is perhaps necessary in order to
examine the role of higher education in enriching and enhancing social entrepreneurship, if
this is the case. For the purpose of this paper a specific relevant theoretical approach has been
used. It has been called in a series of cases the entrepreneurial orientation of an organisation
and focuses on the organisational level of analysis (Todorovic, 2004). Theory although static
it can be beneficial because it provides an informative theoretical framework for use,
according to Fiet (2001 cited Todorovic, 2004). However, this is not always possible with
entrepreneurship, (therefore social entrepreneurship) because they are closely linked with the
“real-world” environment. Bjerke (2007) asks the question that many academics have faced
with: Can entrepreneurship (and social entrepreneurship) be taught? Although not
surprisingly most entrepreneurship scholars seem to advocate to a positive answer, the point
is (according to Bjerke) to be able to clarify under what circumstances education takes place.
In this light, issues that will have to be considered include:
 What are the educational objectives?
 Who are the students?
 To what extent should we ask the students to actually start a [social enterprise]
venture during or after joining an educational programme?
 What are the teaching techniques and pedagogy used?
 What dimensions should be included when we assess the effect of the educational
programme? (Bjerke, 2007: 225)

These are not easy questions to answer, especially with regard to such a novel subject area.
Nevertheless, they seem useful to be presented in this context as a contribution to the constant
debate about social entrepreneurship. Todorovic (2004) argues that entrepreneurship (thus its
social element as well) is a field that needs the development of a dynamic component in
addition to its theoretical basis. A dynamic component can be seen as an educational context

4
that is affected by student activity and it is likely to grow in conjunction with the “real-world”
environment. This component could be then presented in the classroom in a way that reflects
the “real world”. According to Heinonen and Hytti (2010) teaching about entrepreneurship
involves that we encounter the subject as an academic field of study, therefore this implies
that students should be equipped with relevant research skills and capabilities. In the past, this
component was missing or it was not sufficiently developed regarding the education on
entrepreneurship. Even the university culture of the time did not support the creation and
development of such component. Figure 1 shows how this dynamic component can relate to
social entrepreneurship education. This is presented in the context of an assumed
entrepreneurial-orientation higher education institution and it is based on innovativeness,
proactiveness and risk taking. This can be explained by the fact that a number of universities
are making serious attempts to become more innovative, proactive and flexible nowadays
(Menzies, 2002). A university that is innovative and proactive is better equipped to react to
changes in a dynamic way rather than just accepting that changes happen (Todorovic, 2004).
The significance of this framework is multifarious. Firstly, it increases the understanding of
social entrepreneurship education. Secondly, it illustrates the importance of the university
culture. Finally, by increasing the understanding of teaching social entrepreneurship it further
contributes to university‟s future regarding better exploitation of opportunities. For example,
the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada has launched the Centre of Business,
Entrepreneurship and Technology programme (CBET). Recognising the impact of the
university‟s entrepreneurial orientation the programme provides theory which is
supplemented by activities that engage students in a venture related environment. This
environment functions under the direction of social entrepreneurs (Todorovic, 2004). The
example demonstrates a university social entrepreneurship programme that provides both
dynamic and static elements to the training of future entrepreneurs.

[Please insert Figure 1 here]

Furthermore, in order to assess the position of social entrepreneurship and how higher
education could contribute to its development, the subject area is examined according to the
kind of environment it is implemented within. To this extent, two particular types of market
environments are envisaged: social welfare markets on the one hand and “commercial”
markets on the other. One would also consider a third kind of environment, the one of mixing
characteristics and features of the first two types (Aiken, 2006). This orientation of social
entrepreneurship is vital because it can determine the support higher education can offer as it
can be seen with the cases of Bournemouth and Memorial Universities in the section with the
empirical research findings. In a similar fashion, Dees et al (2001) describe the social
entrepreneurship spectrum as a means of options social entrepreneurs have in order to
structure their organisation. The social entrepreneurship spectrum is presented in Table 1 as
an illustration of the two extremes of social enterprises – purely philanthropic organisations
on one hand and purely commercial on the other – and all the other possibilities in between. It
could then be argued that the social entrepreneurship spectrum complements the types of
market environments social enterprises could develop.

[Please insert Table 1 here]

Finally, the degree of participation by the university students and members of staff in creating
a climate of implementing successfully aspects of social enterprising is a determining factor
that can heavily affect the scale of support higher education can offer in enhancing social
entrepreneurship. All the aforementioned as well as the practical implications of social

5
dimensions of entrepreneurship by Defourny, as they are described in the previous section of
this paper are going to be tested and analysed in the context of Dorset, UK and Avalon,
Canada through particular activities within the Bournemouth and Memorial universities
respectively. Before this a brief account of methodological issues is being given.

4. Methodological issues
This research should be considered as an initial proactive reaction onto how social
entrepreneurship could/should be part of the higher education life and get supported by it. In
the light of this, it constitutes part of a research with a much broader scope that the author has
planned to conduct especially with regard to the impact social entrepreneurship can have on
local residents‟ life primarily in the area of Dorset, UK. This introductory character could
perhaps be considered as its main limitation. Its qualitative character has been determined by
the nature of the particular research to identify core aspects of university involvement with
social entrepreneurship and how this can perhaps be feasible in a positive sort of a manner.
Smith and Anderson (2007) point out that there is little qualitative research about
entrepreneurship however the benefits of having it are worthy. They are self-evident but
frequently only achieved as part of a broader research strategy.

Methodology-wise this paper is based upon primary research of qualitative nature via conduct
of semi-structured interviews with university students and members of staff. The collection of
primary data took place in both Bournemouth and Memorial Universities between September
2007 and March 2010. According to Yin (1994) interviewing is one of the most important
sources of case study information. This was proved to be the case with this paper as the
participant interviewees gave a comprehensive picture of where the two universities are
heading with regard to the application of a social entrepreneurship framework and how they
could perhaps contribute to it. To this extent, 12 interviews were conducted at both places.
Additionally, it has also relied upon collection of secondary data. Especially in the case of
Memorial University secondary data proved to be a very useful source of information, as it
included a broad range of sources such as: interior case studies; local newspapers; and
university archives.

5. The cases of Bournemouth University, UK and Memorial University of

Newfoundland, Canada – Discussion
5.1. Social Entrepreneurship at Bournemouth University
Bournemouth University is one of the relatively new universities in the UK – since 1992. It
has been pursuing entrepreneurship through governmental schemes e.g. Knowledge Transfer
Partnerships (KTP) that in 2006 represented a portfolio of about £1.7 million of external
funding (Bournemouth University, 2006b). It was pointed out that “the University‟s
enterprise ambitions will be achieved through educational programmes, targeted Continuing
Personal Development programmes, knowledge exploitation through licensing and spin-outs,
knowledge transfer through consultancy, facilities provision, partnerships with external
organisations and incentivising and rewarding staff” (Bournemouth University, 2006a: 7).
Moreover, the university recognises that entrepreneurship should not be pursued only for
financial gain and it is open to innovative ideas and collaborative forms that could include the
Third sector and promote social entrepreneurship. However, a university review on
entrepreneurship identified lack of information, advice and guidance with regard to its
policies and how to go about getting enterprise work (Bournemouth University, 2008).
Entrepreneurship and innovation are promoted via the university‟s Innovation Centre (BUIC)
and the Centre for Research and Knowledge Transfer (CRKT).

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 5.2. Social Entrepreneurship at Memorial University of Newfoundland
The PJ Gardiner Institute is the main promoter of entrepreneurship at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland. The institute was established in 1978 and since then it
“provides the necessary frameworks to develop and deliver outreach services to help make
these ideas work. Its activities create a robust interaction with economic development
agencies, and are an essential point of contact with the needs of real people in the real
economy” (Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2008: front page). In September 2007
ACE Memorial, a student group created to promote entrepreneurship opened Launch Pad,
Canada‟s first and only student business incubator operated by students. Launch Pad is a
place where student entrepreneurs can operate and grow their business while attending
classes (Gazette, September 20th, 2007). Despite lack of official statement that supports social
entrepreneurship by the university there have been indications of its development through the
work of its members of staff and students. For example, Sheppard (2003: 124) pinpoints the
significance of entrepreneurship with a social face, as „the promotion and spread of
entrepreneurial values have adopted the same processes used by social movements to
advance their cause and get their message out everywhere.‟

5.3. Discussion
The contribution by Bournemouth and Memorial Universities to social entrepreneurship can
perhaps take the form of a comparison, as the two universities have differed in their selected
approaches. Based upon primary and secondary data, the approach followed by Bournemouth
University has come as a result of having a “philanthropic” attitude that is blended with the
tendency to benefit from a commercial approach to social entrepreneurship. To this extent it
could be argued that Bournemouth University has followed a hybrid approach to social
entrepreneurship. Indicative to this is that the Enterprise Review of 2008 recommends firmly
the university to „develop a Strategy for the Region that identifies the key partners and
stakeholders the University should work with‟ in order to gain social and economic benefits
(Bournemouth University, 2008: 38).

In contrast, it could be argued that Memorial University has preferred a more commercial
approach, which derived from its attitude towards entrepreneurship that is to see social
entrepreneurship mainly as a way of profiting from it. This was clearly stated in the PJ
Gardiner Institute‟ website, that it „provides aspiring entrepreneurs with counselling advice
and direction on a business idea to the point of business start-up’ (Memorial University of
Newfoundland, 2008). However, in the same website it is also stated that the Institute is
„open to all members of the university community including undergraduate and graduate
students, faculty, staff, and alumni’. In addition it is open to the local community too, as one
of its consultants pointed out:
‘At the PJ Gardiner Institute whoever has walked through the door will be served.
We never say: no, you should go somewhere else. With that network we are
entangled in, engaged so it’s no problem for us to take them in to PJ Gardiner
Institute and find what’s best for them. So, you know it works well like that.‟
(From the interview with one of the business consultants at the Memorial
University)

The choice of the manner each university deals with social entrepreneurship has reflected
their motives, methods and goals as it can be seen in Table 2. This has obviously affected the
way each university regards entrepreneurial activity. It could be argued that Bournemouth
University has developed an entrepreneurial orientation culture in principle despite the fact
that there are many more steps to be taken in order to achieve its social entrepreneurship

7
goals. This culture and tendency to achieve more is explicitly mirrored in the Enterprise
Review the university published in 2008 in which some of the recommended actions are: To
re-brand its Centre for Research and Policy Transfer into Centre for Research and Enterprise
which will have a more business-focused way of operating; to undertake robust economic
assessment and competitor analysis of all university assets; to agree annual targets for
commercialisation activity with the specific university schools; to enter into regional
partnership schemes with existing enterprise hubs and groups (Bournemouth University,
2008). As someone would expect innovation, proactiveness and risk taking are still in the
sphere of what could be desirable rather than happening.

[Please insert Table 2 here]

This is not the case with Memorial University though because it has already reached a well
defined state of entrepreneurial orientation culture. This is reflected in the university‟s
curriculum. For example, the Faculty of Business created the position of the Chair in Youth-
Focused Technological Entrepreneurship, which encompasses responsibilities of conducting
relevant research, creating new ventures; and support entrepreneurship within the subject
areas of business, engineering, science and medicine. In addition, the PJ Gardiner Institute
introduced a series of initiatives such as: the Entrepreneur-in-Residence initiative;
scholarships and awards to recognise entrepreneurial endeavours, business plans, etc; the
ACE Memorial support, a national award winning faculty advisor; and the Dobson
Foundation support (Power, 2007). In this respect, it would be fair to claim that Memorial
University has had well established innovation, proactiveness and risk taking approaches.

With regard to how far the two universities have gone with the promotion of an attitude
towards social entrepreneurship it is interesting to notice that their social entrepreneurship
attributes play a major part in their choices. In this light, Bournemouth University accepts the
fact that it follows a hybrid option by having both “social” and “commercial” interests. This
was explicit by the representative of the student entrepreneurship group who noted that:
‘I think we make an impact to local community…[but] I can’t really say what
impact we have made as a society because we started six months ago…It’s an on-
going process really so hopefully this time next year we have a much more
greater contribution to local community… I would like to think that we educate
the local community but again what we like to change is to work with
organisations such as Business Link…I think if we establish a relationship with
Business Link and then it will all follow from there with the resources we would
have here they [businesses] could be promoted through to people they know and
that can get local community involved.’
(From the interview with the representative of the student entrepreneurship group
at Bournemouth University)

As for Memorial University there is no evidence at all that they have developed initiatives
that would benefit the community. As a result, any decisions on entrepreneurship members of
staff and students have made were based on the principle to own and increase capital
wherever possible. In addition, there is no such thing as “limited profit distribution”, quite the
opposite. The latter applies to the case of Bournemouth as well. Having said that, there is
evidence of willingness to see entrepreneurship as affecting the local community in a positive
way in the long run, as one of the young entrepreneurs at the Launch Pad event suggested:
‘So I think that just economic factors have forced people to be innovative to be
entrepreneurial to create opportunities for themselves here. Projects like Launch Pad allows

8
the next generation, our generation to have another alternative in building a future here
instead of going to the mainland or another place. Anytime you can keep somebody here, a
young person that is going to build a business here and employ other people then you build a
boost for everyone.’
(Young entrepreneur at Memorial University)

Ultimately, with respect to the degree of participation by university members of staff and
students from the conducted interviews it became apparent that there are an increasing
number of people in both universities who support the development of an entrepreneurship
tradition via attendance of relevant events, provision of relevant material and giving talks in
relevant events, etc. Taking this discussion into account it can perhaps be argued that the
establishment of social entrepreneurship orientation is a step that cannot come easily. It is this
that should change first in order for the university attitude towards social entrepreneurship to
change.

6. Conclusion
Considering all the aforementioned viewpoints, it can perhaps be argued that the
establishment of a social entrepreneurship orientation in an organisation is a vital step
towards economic and social growth although it cannot be achieved easily. It is this step that
should be obtained first in order for an organisation‟s (a university‟s in the case of this paper)
attitude towards social entrepreneurship to change. Higher education can be supportive in
enhancing social entrepreneurship in policy terms as long as entrepreneurial orientation and
attitude towards social entrepreneurship are developed within it. This is an issue that should
be under governmental scrutiny, especially now that social entrepreneurship‟s development
has begun to get increasingly significant momentum. From the research findings it can be
argued that despite the fact that they see things through different spectacles, Bournemouth
University and Memorial University of Newfoundland are in the position to smile regarding
enhancement of social entrepreneurship for three reasons: they have established a basis for
entrepreneurial orientation; they have created a culture towards development of
entrepreneurship; and they are concerned about the social effect entrepreneurship might have
to the life of their respective community.

However, there are a number of hurdles that have to be overcome such as: further focus on
how entrepreneurship can benefit their community; further enhancement of limited profit
distribution; creating a decision-making system that would not be dependent exclusively on
capital ownership; and increasing further an atmosphere of collaboration and synergy. It is at
the end of the day these findings that could advance planning of research on social
entrepreneurship in the future by investigating case studies outside the university web and
within the local society. More than all these it has to be said that the influence of social
entrepreneurship to university life is still in its infancy hence some substantial steps should be
expected for the future. As Light (2008) argues the core question is not how much socially
entrepreneurial activity exists, but how it can be explored to its maximum. And this obviously
must involve carefully designed research.

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 Social Entrepreneurship
Institutional Culture Education Activity

University Environment (Static) Static element

University Environment (Dynamic)

1. Innovative
2. Proactive Dynamic element
3. Willing to take reasonable risk

Entrepreneurial Orientation
Innovation
Proactive ness
Risk Taking

Figure 1: Conceptual framework of Social Entrepreneurship Education at an

Entrepreneurially Oriented University (Adapted from Todorovic, 2004: 307)

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 Continuum of Options
Purely Hybrids Purely Commercial
philanthropic
General Motives Appeal to goodwill Mixed motives Appeal to self-
interest
Methods Mission-driven Balance of mission Market-driven
and market
Goals Social value creation Social and economic Economic value
value creation
Table 1: The social entrepreneurship spectrum (Adopted from Dees et al, 2001: 15)

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 Bournemouth University Memorial University of
Newfoundland
UNIVERSITY
ATTRIBUTES
Motives Mixed motives Appeal to self-interest
Methods Balance of mission and Market-driven
market
Goals Social and economic value Economic value creation
University environment More static than dynamic Dynamic
Entrepreneurial Principally yes but at an Yes
orientation early stage
Innovation Principally yes but at an Yes, well established
early stage
Proactiveness Principally yes but at an Yes, well established
early stage
Risk Taking Principally yes but at an Yes, well established
early stage

UNIVERSITY
ATTITUDE TOWARDS
SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
An explicit aim to benefit In principle, yes No, but there is evidence
the community for willingness to change in
the future
An initiative launched by N/a N/a
a group of citizens
Decision-making power The opposite applies The opposite applies
not based on capital
ownership
A participatory nature, In principle, yes No, but there is evidence
which involves the for willingness to change in
various parties affected the future
by the activity
Limited profit The opposite applies The opposite applies
distribution
Table 2: The social entrepreneurship spectrum at Bournemouth University and Memorial
University of Newfoundland

15