Abstract:

Developed back in the 1960’s, Social Entrepreneurships have become a popular method of combining business practices with current social problems to create innovative solutions with sustainable and replicable results. Both profit and non-profit organizations are finding this model appealing as they mold together business principles with non-profit thinking. While a business entrepreneur might create a completely new industry, a social entrepreneur develops innovative solutions to social problems and then implements them on a large scale in a practical fashion.

Today’s MBA programs are producing not just captains of industry, but also crusaders for social change and improvement. Any business program teaching skills needs to train their graduates to serve both companies and society. This means equipping would-be entrepreneurs with an understanding of multiple bottom lines and equipping would-be corporate professionals with intrapreneurial vision to connect business interests to social value. Steeped in both social and business principles, MBA programs across the world have created highly practical programs to provide this new breed of MBAs the ability to navigate the complex environment and create opportunities of sustainability.

In our conference presentation and paper, we will provide the history of social entrepreneurs with examples of successful organizations and the change they created. In our paper and conference presentation we will define the concept of social entrepreneurships and explain how it differs from either the traditional for-profit business corporation or the non-profit human services agency. Finally, this conference presentation and paper will discuss the various MBA programs incorporating social benefit content and necessary skills to engage in successful issue-advocacy, problem-solving innovation, and project development.

Keywords:

Social entrepreneurship, MBA programs, for-profit practices, non-for profit sustainability.