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Dear Entrepreneurship Friends:

The AACSB's issued its Peace through Commerce Task Force report in 2006. This report addressed how business education may be able to contribute to a "world of good." Because private sector businesses seek new opportunities and markets, they are innovative in finding effective solutions that transcend personal and cultural differences. Creating new value "can inspire collaboration between strangers and sometimes even between those who might have regarded each other as enemies. Once people work together and learn that people are essentially the same, regardless of their backgrounds, making war is likely to become far less attractive than making money" (AACSB, 2006: 7).

The ability to find mutually beneficial opportunities often depends on one's network, and when people of different backgrounds and perspectives decide to work together, this is known by sociologists and political scientists as "bridging social capital" (Putnam, 2000b: 1).

The Peace through Commerce Task Force called on business schools to teach the importance of nonfinancial measures of corporate performance. The report stated: "Management education should also offer students opportunities to explore the underlying philosophical, nonfinancial aspects of business. By integrating these concepts into the educational experiences of students, schools can produce more globally conscious leaders and heighten understanding-and even prospects for peace."

On its website in 2006, the AACSB listed a program that I founded-Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE)-as  an effective practice in contributing to its peace through commerce initiative (see http://sageglobal.org).

If you would like to see how university students are providing consultation and peer mentoring to teens who start their own social enterprises, I would like to invite you to UC-Berkeley on June 5-7, and/or to Seoul, South Korea on August 7-10.

Let me know if you'd like more details.

Miles of Smiles,

Curt

Dr. Curtis L. DeBerg

College of Business

California State University, Chico

Chico, CA 95929-0011

530-898-4824 (phone)

cdeberg@csuchico.edu

Skype: cdeberg

Founder, SAGEGLOBAL (http://sageglobal.org)

P.S.

The combination of entrepreneurship and social enterprise provides a formula for a new kind of capitalism-a more humanitarian capitalism-espoused by Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, and Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates. Yunus (2007) asserts that "We need to reform the capitalist system to make room for social enterprise." In his view, generating ideas for social businesses is the most important, immediate challenge of today's business thinkers." Bill Gates (2008, p. 40) concurs: "Governments and nonprofit groups have an irreplaceable role in helping [the world's poor], but it will take far too long if they try to do it alone. It is mainly corporations that have the skills to make technological innovations work for the poor. To make the most of those skills, we need a more creative capitalism: an attempt to stretch the reach of market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off. We need new ways to bring far more people into the system-capitalism-that has done so much good in the world" (p. 40).

The notion that teenagers can make the world a better place must seem unrealistic and overly idealistic, especially to the hard-nosed business people amongst us. They are not weighed down by failure, but have the enthusiasm, the optimism and the belief that success is possible. SAGE provides youth with a platform to share their first taste of success, allowing a venue with which to share their stories. Bornstein (2004) explains: "People who solve problems must somehow first arrive at the belief that they can solve problems. This belief does not emerge suddenly. The capacity to cause change grows in an individual over time as small-scale efforts lead gradually to larger ones. But the process needs a beginning-a story, an example, an early taste of success-something along the way helps a person form the belief that it is possible to make the world a better place. Those who act on that belief spread it to others. They are highly contagious. Their stories must be told" (p. 282).