Social entrepreneurship and SDGs: case studies from northeast Nigeria

What is it about?

As opposed to relying on the generic notion of social entrepreneurship as any business activity the leads to some social impact, this approach hopes to enable students to call out specific forms of social purpose entrepreneurship by their true names and in a particular, to spot when entrepreneurs pass off acts of social responsibility as a legitimate form of social entrepreneurship. The Impact+ framework aims to unite the diverse knowledge and wisdom from the main traditions of social entrepreneurship, from Martin and Osberg’s (2007) idea of an original overhaul of social injustice to Prahalad’s (2005) notion of serving the bottom of the pyramid. This way, one common rubric for judging social and sustainable entrepreneurship activities may be achieved that everyone can agree upon. This case study teaches how to start and grow social purpose ventures using Impact+, which sees the ways by which entrepreneurship can contribute to SDGs in three spheres. First, there is the area of action (the business model), which represents the most direct ways through which entrepreneurs can promote SDGs and corresponds to the mainstream view of social entrepreneurship. Second, there is the area of bearing (firm and stakeholders) which represents the less direct ways through which an entrepreneur can wield influence on stakeholders both through ensuring that they are as well off from poverty as possible and that the firm does not harm the environment. Third, there is the area of concern (institutions), which represents the indirect ways a community of entrepreneurs can collectively seek to improve the conditions under which to successfully pursue social impact entrepreneurship.

Featured Image