Dear Colleagues:
Whether entrepreneurship is good, neutral, or evil is not most practicing entrepreneurs dwell upon (we, in academia, obviously have more time to consider such philosophical questions!).
Like Andrew, I believe entrepreneurship "involves innovation, creativity, proactivty in an environment of risk/uncertainty." If a person is innovative and creative and uses his/her talents to create profits for personal gain, that's okay, as long as his activity is not illegal or criminal.
But for a growing number of people, there is more to entrepreneurship than profits and markets. As businessman and author Paul Hawken said in his 1993 book, The Ecology of Commerce: "The ultimate purpose of business is not, or should not be, simply to make money. Nor is it merely a system of making and selling things. The promise of business is to increase the general well-being of humankind through service, a creative invention and ethical philosophy." Hawken's belief that business should increase the general well-being of humankind sounds a whole lot like the objective of a "social entrepreneur" (SE), whose primary goal is to address a social problem (with profit-seeking a secondary goal, or not a goal at all).
Bill Gates started out as a "commercial entrepreneur," bent on profits. Now he has become a social entrepreneur. An interesting read is his speech at Harvard in June ( e.g., http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/06.14/99-gates.html). According to Gates, one of the challenges for him and his wife, Melinda, was to find an answer to this question: How can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have?
For example, as you can see from reading the transcript, the Gates' learned how millions of children in developing countries were dying from diseases that are no longer a problem in developed countries. He realized that neither the free market nor the government was addressing this problem effectively. Businesses couldn't make a profit from saving children, so they didn't enter this "market." And governments haven't made saving children one of their spending priorities. The Gates' now believe that the best way to address this challenge is through what he calls "creative capitalism," whereby businesses can make a profit by serving the needs of the poor? He also called for more citizen activism ( e.g., the communitarian form of civic engagement), whereby individuals can press the government to make poverty-alleviation a priority.
But before business and government will change their behavior, individuals like those at Harvard must turn their CARING about the problem into ACTING on the problem. Near the end of his speech, Gates implored Harvard faculty, alumni and students to use their power to help improve the lives of the disenfranchised, and he left them with this question: "Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?"
In essence, Gates is calling for more entrepreneurship in pursuit of "good" rather than neutral or evil goals. He would like to see more social entrepreneurs, like those featured in the book, How to Change the World, by David Bornstein.
If I were an entrepreneurship professor rather than an accounting professor I would absolutely want to teach a course on Social Entrepreneurship.
Barring a trade from the accounting department to management in our College of Business, my only recourse is to teach entrepreneurship through service-learning, and to educate younger entrepreneurs at the high school level (both commercial and social) as part of my mission to "increase the general well-being of humankind."
Cheers,
Curt
Dr. Curt DeBerg, CPA
Professor of Accounting
California State University, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0011
Founder: SAGE, http://sageglobal.org
530.898.4824
cdeberg@csuchico.edu
skype id: cdeberg
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.pace.edu] On Behalf Of William D. Schulte
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:02 AM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
Subject: [ENTREP] Entrepreneurship as a social "evil" The Tony Soprano School of Entrepreneurship
Andrew, I like your contrarian thinking. We need to challenge current "knowledge" as a way of being. We should not promote any construct as dogma. Let me suggest that you do some grounded thinking. For example, are drug dealers entrepreneurs? Of course. But is it good for society? Was Al Capone good for America? I know you like movies as a metaphor for understanding, so let me also suggest that you investigate the "Godfather" series as family business. Or the Sopranos. Surely Tony has demonstrated entrepreneurial leadership and has shown how creative he can be in wacking his enemies.
Cheers. Hope all is well in Auckland. Bayou Bill
From: "Strike, Vanessa" < vstrike@IVEY.UWO.CA>
Reply-To: "Strike, Vanessa" < vstrike@IVEY.UWO.CA>
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Entrepreneurship as a social "evil"
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:28:55 -0400
Hi Andrew -
Not sure if it has come up yet, but if not, have a look at Manfred Kets de Vries' work on "The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship". Best wishes in your research!
Vanessa
Vanessa M. Strike
Richard Ivey School of Business (Office ON44)
The University of Western Ontario
London , Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7
Email: vstrike@ivey.uwo.ca
Phone: (519) 661-2111 ext. 80211
Fax: (519) 661-3959
Website: http://www.ivey.uwo.ca
"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way."
-- Wayne Dyer
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.pace.edu ] On Behalf Of Romie Littrell
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 6:42 PM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Entrepreneurship as a social "evil"
Hi Andrew, 6 or 7 years ago I was teaching at university in Germany and used an article that had a survey that indicated that the majority of the participants believed that entrepreneurs were disruptive and detrimental to German society. Are you aware of it? If not, hopefully I can locate it.
Greetings all.
I am working on revising an article that deals with the marriage of evil and entrepreneurship. While making the changes requested I thought about an alternative approach.
There seems to me an awful lot of literature around within the discipline that suggests or infers that the pursuit of entrepreneurship is a "good' and such pursuits should be encouraged at school, at the university, in work, and in conjunction with the entrepreneurial orientation, as a way of viewing the world.
I am keen to find specific articles, Marx aside, that highlight entrepreneurship as an evil, or 'bad' force in the community. I am not wishing to drag up how entrepreneurship can be "corrupted' for evil, for that in itself infers that entrepreneurship in essence is good. My stand point is that entrepreneurship is amoral, and without ethics. Entrepreneurial activity for me involves innovation, creativity, proactivty in an environment of risk/uncertainty. So just as it could be involved in non business applications so it could also appear as evil in society.
I was just wondering if anyone has come across specific articles where entrepreneurship is considered evil, not as I have said corrupted for evil.
Enjoy the rest of the week.
Dr Andrew Cardow
Department of Management and International Business
Massey University, Auckland NZ
ph + 64 9 414 0800
a.cardow@massey.ac.nz
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Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin
AUT Business School N.Z., romie.littrell@aut.ac.nz
http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
Facilitator, Leadership & Management in Sub-Sahara Africa Conferences
Contents copyright Romie F. Littrell
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