Both the entrepreneur and the social entrepreneur are strongly motivated by the opportunity they identify, pursuing that vision relentlessly, and deriving considerable psychic reward from the process of realizing their ideas. [...] We believe that the critical distinction between entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship lies in the value proposition itself. For the entrepreneur, the value proposition anticipates and is organized to serve markets that can comfortably afford the new product or service, and is thus designed to create financial profit. The social entrepreneur, however, neither anticipates nor organizes to create substantial financial profit for his or her investors –philanthropic and government organizations for the most part – or for himself or herself. Instead, the social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of large-scale, transformational benefit that accrues either to a significant segment of society or to society at large

Example: Bas van Abel (Fairphone)

His idealism was the starting point for Fairphone - his idealism drove him “to do something that everyone thought was impossible” (Fairphone Origin Story)

Example: Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank)

Muhammad Yunus is known for pioneering microfinance through the Grameen Bank, providing small loans to empower individuals in poverty. His long-term resilience challenged traditional banking systems, demonstrating visionary leadership to address financial inclusion in the long run

Bad example: Blake Mycoskie (TOM’s Shoes)

Blake Mycoskie founded TOM’s shoes based on a very personal life experience as he was travelling and saw too many kids without shoes. His own biased perception led him to found his social enterprise and in particular TOMs ‘One for One’ campaign which however lacked social awareness andempathy...

While I was working for the United Nations in refugee crises, one severe problem was the fact that girls often did not attend school while on their period. The idea was to hand out free packages with sanitary pads for all school-aged girls. However, girls did still not attend school? Why? • Because in many contexts girls did not have underwear. Recognizing this need would have made the initiative successful while missing this latent need meant huge investments were wasted.

Social innovations and social enterprises fail if they are not based on the client’s or customer’s needs and many social entrepreneurs start their enterprise with preconceived and biased assumptions of what needs are without identifying the actual or latent needs

Research shows that addressing needs is hardly straightforward or simple, as many different people are affected by a problem and there is neither agreement on the problem nor agreement on the right solution (evaluative)

Design thinking has proven to be a powerful alternative to more conventional problem-solving approaches as it uncovers biased assumptions and problem definitions that block more effective solutions from emerging

Design thinking was conceptualized by designer Nigel Cross in 1982 in the Design Studies article “Designerly Ways of Knowing"

The approach was later used and made popular by IDEO, a global design consultancy, that was designing Apple’s first mouse but later on worked on solutions for wider social problems

"Design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that places empathy at its core. It seeks to understand the needs and experiences of people to create innovative and impactful solutions.”

"Design Thinking is the single biggest competitive advantage that you can have, if your customers are loyal to you—because if you solve for their needs first, you’ll always win.”

Design Thinking is not only useful for social innovation tackling grand challenges but has gained relevance in many industries and especially consulting, as a promising approach to complex problem-solving

Because “The design thinking process is best thought of as a system of overlapping spaces rather than a sequence of orderly steps.

This process of immersion is crucial to check assumptions and to uncover different facets of the proble

dentify meaningful or surprising new insights

Use different ideation techniques and embrace multidisciplinarity (“architects who have studied psychology, artists with MBAs, or engineers with marketing experience”)

Trying solutions out in an iterative process, which often leads back to Step 1 of the process to further refine and specify the needs

What comes after a design thinking process? Founding and managing a social enterprise

developing suitable business model to secure funding to scale (guest lecture)

Managing both social and economic goals -> tensions of hybridity

Research shows that tensions of hybridity are about the challenges (and opportunities) of pursuing a dual mission follows social as well as economic objectives

Research shows that businesses may experience some tensions of hybridity if they engage in corporate social responsibility and NGOs may experience some tensions of hybridity if they engage in income generating activities, but social enterprises face severe tensions of hybridity because they sit right in the middle of the hybrid spectrum

If the mission gets prioritized, the product might not be viable enough in a very competitive market, if product gets prioritized, it risks mission drift, losing legitimacy and customers

t is extremely difficult to find hybrid employees, so “mission-minded techies”, but recruiting employees that are ‘either or’ risks high-levels of organizational identity conflic

Setting and monitoring social goals alongside financial ones

Practicing dual-minded leadership