在世界范围内，社会创业课程和商业比赛常常存在着一些局限——学生往往会被鼓励去解决他们从未亲身经历过的问题，例如无家可归、牢狱之灾等等。
而在社会创业教授Katherine Milligan心中，社会创业应该是运用创新、实际、可持续且以市场为导向的方式，为社会和环境带来变革，且需特别关注低收入、弱势或边缘人群。
在这其中最重要的是，需要拥有系统思维，承认社会和环境问题的复杂性和互联性，把个人放到更广阔的社会环境中去。这样解决问题的过程，才是真正链接社会需要和个人经历的有效方式。
首先，我们必须承认，“社会创业”是一个在学术界相对缺乏定义的概念，因此，一些持怀疑态度的学者往往对此不屑一顾。从某种程度来说，社会创业也受到了自身成功的伤害。“社会企业”已成为一个时髦的热词，经常被误用和滥用，某些生活方式app、健康饮品等都可以借此时髦一把，反而令严谨的学术研究举步维艰。
几年前，作为施瓦布社会企业家基金会的负责人，我管理着世界经济论坛的社会创新全球议程委员会。基于上述原因，委员会召集了一批学者、实践者、影响力投资者和主要机构的负责人，试图在甚嚣尘上的舆论环境中，开展清醒审慎的讨论。Jacqueline Novogratz, Johanna Mair, Zia Khan, Iftekhar Enayetullah, Pooran Desai, Nicholas O’Donohoe, Alvaro Rodriguez Arregui以及无可替代、备受思念的Greg Dees等其他社会创业领域的专业人士，共同给出了这一定义。
在开始之前，先确保我们对现状有一致的认识。首先我想提醒各位，“社会创业”的定义并不唯一，甚至所谓的“正确”定义也并不存在。然而，上述的各位思潮引领者仍为“社会创新”做出了如下定义：运用创新、实际、可持续且以市场为导向的方式，为社会和环境带来变革，且特别关注低收入、弱势或边缘化人群。这一定义中的每个词都经过仔细斟酌，经得起进一步的解释与推敲。然而由于篇幅与时间限制，我不在这里仔细探讨。我们现在直接切入正题。
如何通过学习与实践社会创业和社会创新，影响甚至变革当今的商业教育？鉴于变革商业教育所需要的巨大转变和经济系统的巨大规模，我想提出三个社会创业和社会创新可以为MBA课程作出贡献的机会。
首先，社会创业和社会创新能够加速教育领域急需的变革，即改变目前占据主流地位的竞争思维——以增长“我”的市场份额为目标——转变成系统性思维。系统思维承认社会和环境问题的复杂性与互联性，认识到单一组织或企业无法独当一面，完全“解决”这些问题。社会企业的目标是解决问题，哪怕（特别是）这意味着自身被迫退出市场。这与当今许多商学院所灌输的理念，即“我要夺取竞争者的市场份额，将它们挤出市场”形成了鲜明反差。
2018年9月，New Profit公司的主席Jeff Walker与 care.com网站的CEO Sheila Marcelo资助了耶鲁大学管理学院的一场会议，会上聚集了40位在社会创业领域的系统变革教育者和领袖。会后出版了一份报告《创新领域的系统变革教育》，旨在将与会者的共同知识分享给更多受众，这一报告极具阅读价值，报告摘录如下：
“社会创新和社会创业的教育者独具优势，可推动扭转那些不健康的本地和全球系统。但在许多课程中，社会创业只是被简单地理解为社会企业创造：选中某一社会议题，在蜻蜓点水般的学习后，即打造出可带来变革的新型产品和服务，并试图将其扩展成公司规模、扩大其影响力。这一模式的问题在于，它将社会变革的推动搭载在个体机构的成长基础之上，这往往会使社会企业割裂联系、各成一派，独立承担变革责任。
然而，扭转不健康的系统需要一系列息息相关的变革，不仅包括创建新的企业，更需要变革当前的结构体系和这些体系内不同要素的现存关系。
如果没有系统层面发生的变革，新生社会企业通过个体结果能创造的价值微乎其微，很难影响到我们当今时代面临的一些更广泛的议题。因此，创新创业的教育者有机会，如果不是义务，去阐释社会的复杂性和互联性，促进系统性的认知。
一旦意识到社会问题的复杂性和互联性，我们马上就能够理解，单点干预远远不能撼动社会问题的“定海神针”。一些传统工具，如商业模式画布、从私营领域借鉴的规模化模型，如分支复制、社会加盟连锁等，在为整个社会创造有意义的社会变革层面也都无能为力。
说到底，在一个市场不会失灵的理想世界，传统的企业是能够参与其中并解决问题的。同时，如果没有体系变革的需求，当前体系中那些特别强大的企业也不会存在，因为正是它们受益于这一变革需求。一个美国主要基金会的主管最近告诉我：“大家现在都在谈立业从善。我们要求这些企业家克服市场失灵，在创收的同时为大众造福。但事实往往相反，因为市场是残缺不全的。”
相反，向学生介绍系统性思维的课程会优先注重以下技能，包括：
采用多方立场，深入理解某个问题的根本原因，特别是考虑社会文化准则、信仰体系或权力高低的作用；Peter Senge, John Kania及Mark Kramer在《系统性变革之水》的报告中巧妙地将其阐释为“令痼疾存在的条件”；
在某一特定体系中，构建不同个体和机构（它们的目标往往南辕北辙）的共同认知和愿意共同遵守的议程，意识到每个个体或机构都会将自己的议程、世界观、行业术语，没错，还有骄傲带到讨论桌前；
挑战自身和他人的假设及偏见；去影响那些你无法凌驾其上的其他人；去培养开放的氛围，促进学习和调整适应，否则某些方法可能会导致糟糕的结果，令他人表现欠佳（甚至带来伤害）；
构建并维持与其他伙伴的长期信任（以年，而非月为单位计算），跨越距离（有些合作伙伴可能来自不同大陆）——提升体系的包容性，纵使这一尝试在过程中不可避免会面临抵制、挫折甚至伤害。
若实践社会创业和社创精神，精英大学在教学中的第二个关注重点是要将有亲身经历的个体带到课堂上。不止是美国，在世界范围内，社会创业课程和商业创业比赛存在着普遍的错配——学生往往被鼓励去解决他们从未亲身经历过的问题。无家可归、牢狱之灾、非洲的小规模农户等等，不一而足。
教育者、教授及资助者给予学生名与利，去解决他们从未经历过且尚未理解的问题，这一方式正受到越来越多的批评。确实，这是“将有限的资源浪费在肤浅的解决方案上，却无利于解决复杂问题”。正如那些有亲身经历的人，比方说无家可归的人、服刑囚犯、小农场主的农民等往往只被视作潜在的客户、受益人、用户或焦点小组的参与者，而非领导者、共创者及社会变革的先驱者。在我看来，二者皆是偏见。
这正促使一些有影响力的思想家——特别是来自新兴市场的思想家，指责社会创业是新殖民主义的工具，且证据凿凿。的确，在肯尼亚等地，由于大部分资金被投入由白人侨民所成立的企业，谴责抵制之潮正在酝酿。这是一个非常严峻、甚至颇具存在主义意味的议题，值得更多严肃关注。
社会创业运动的发展不应导致当前的权利分配体系以及我们在性别、种族和种性体系方面的不公平性进一步深化。如果是这样，它将威胁运动的可信度。
若要进行有效的社会创新教育，我们应珍视那些有亲身经历的人之价值，并让其参与到社会创业的课程和学位项目中，将他们提升为领导者和创变者，就权力与特权展开引人深思的严肃辩论。许多社会创业项目及加速方正更努力地解决多样性、公平性及包容性方面的议题(DEI)，甚至采取措施，着力解决在筛选过程中存在的偏见。
虽然大学的招生过程原本从定义上就根植于精英主义——招生流程仅倾向于选择那些拥有优质资历、分数、成绩的申请者——但是大学也应反思自身在其他方面能予以弥补的方式。这方面有些探索和创新值得学习。例如，南非开普敦大学的商学院刚刚在机场旁边建立了一个卫星校区。所有MBA的学生与研究生必须在这一校区至少上一门课，而这里的每一门课都为镇上居民留有一些指定名额。
作为第三点也是最后的反思，我强烈建议大学管理者和商学院院长将个体的内在成长和健康纳入课程。花哨？恰恰相反，在过去十年间，我曾与施瓦布基金会社区中那些事业有成、声明卓著的社会企业家们共事。在这一过程中，我渐渐了解到，一个健康完整的自我才是实现有效社会变革的基础。
贡献你的才华与智慧，投身于为社会和环境带来变革的伟大事业，说实话，这是伟大的召唤，冒着被驳斥这是显而易见的事实之风险，我必须说，随之而来的将是巨大的挑战。我们越是鼓励社会创业、越是将其荣耀化，越冒着“帮学生倒忙”的风险。一位非常成功的社会企业家（其组织的年度预算超过1亿美元），最近告诉我：“我们必须开始改变做事方式，因为当前的努力没有任何进展，人们只是在白白消耗自我”。
任何一位从业数年、衣襟下满是成功（和失败！）经验的社会企业家都会告诉你，这一条路需要与许多消极、甚至有时多到难以承受的情绪作斗争，你需要有应对策略。失败时的恐惧、道义上对现状的愤怒、资助申请受拒后的不安与拒绝、对其他机构或企业家成就的嫉妒和艳羡、冒充者综合征、过去未曾处理的创伤、发不出工资时的焦虑、对你服务的群体所面临的不公正或生活条件感到的悲伤、为自己能力有限而感到的愧疚、力不从心、精疲力竭与抑郁等，源源不断、不胜枚举。
大多数的MBA课程是否使毕业生在踏上职业道路之时，有自我觉察、情绪复原力，且给予他们自我探索、内在管理的工具，让他们能管理好个体的情绪和健康？
这个问题的答案似乎显而易见，所以我也不必费心回答，但是帮助学生获取这些工具、培养这些技能对于成功至关重要。七年前维吉尼亚大学的《学生发展课程》得以成立，具有特殊的参考意义。每年有约400名学生参加这门课程，教育学家现在也正设计一套工具包供其他大学使用。
思考实验室（Contemplative Lab）每周进行一次，每组20人并配有一名助教，学生会学到一些自我观察的方法，例如：身心习练、可视化的技巧、协调式呼吸、身体扫描、培养对自己身体更深层次的感知等。同时在更大的教室里，学生还会每周探索与探讨不同层面的人本发展，如共情、多样性、相互依赖与勇气。这门课程的整体目标旨在帮助学生以多重角度观察自身行动，实现更深层次的自我觉察，从而达到行动与内在价值的真正统一。
而所有MBA毕业生都会从中获益。
英文原文
How Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Can Transform Business Education
Let’s start by acknowledging that one of the problems with social entrepreneurship in an academic context is that it’s a relatively under-conceptualized field, making it easy for skeptical academics to dismiss. Another problem is that it is, in a way, a victim of its own success. “Social enterprise” has become a trendy buzzword that gets misused and abused to describe everything from lifestyle apps to healthy drinks. This makes rigorous scholarship challenging.
For that reason, several years ago the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation, which I ran as the head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at that time, gathered a group of luminaries - scholars, academics, practitioners, impact investors, heads of major foundations, etc. - to cut through the hype and offer clarity. Jacqueline Novogratz, Johanna Mair, Zia Khan, Iftekhar Enayetullah, Pooran Desai, Nicholas O’Donohoe, Alvaro Rodriguez Arregui, and the irreplaceable and much missed Greg Dees, as well as many other leading voices in the field of social entrepreneurship, co-created this definition.
Let's start there, then, to make sure we’re all on the same page. Though I should first offer a caveat by saying it’s not the only definition nor is there only one “right” definition. Nevertheless, the thought leaders above agreed to define social innovation as “the application of innovative, pragmatic, sustainable, market-based approaches that create transformative social and/or environmental change, with an emphasis on low-income, vulnerable, or marginalized populations.” Each one of these words was selected carefully and merits its own explanation and debate. We do not have the space or time to do that here, however, so let’s get straight to the topic at hand.
How can the study and practice of social entrepreneurship and social innovation inform - and even transform - business education today? As I thought about the magnitude of the shift required to transform our business education, and by extension our economic system, I wish to offer three main reflections regarding what the worlds of social entrepreneurship and social innovation can contribute to the MBA curriculum.
The first reflection is it can catalyse the much-needed shift from the dominant paradigm of a competitive mindset - embodied by the goal of growing “my” market share - to a systems mindset, which recognises the complexity and interconnectedness of social and environmental problems as too big for any single organization or venture to “solve.” Social entrepreneurs’ goal is to solve the problem - even if that means (especially if that means) putting themselves out of business - and that stands in stark contrast to the “I will capture my competitors’ market share and put them out of business” mindset taught in many business schools today.
In September 2018, Jeff Walker, Chairman of New Profit, and Sheila Marcelo, CEO of care.com, sponsored a gathering of 40 systems change educators and leaders in social entrepreneurship at the Yale School of Management. Out of that convening came a report aimed at sharing the participants’ collective knowledge with a wider audience, which is very much worth reading and available here: Systems Change Education in an Innovation Context. To quote the introduction:
“Social innovation and social entrepreneurship educators are in a unique position to further the work of shifting unhealthy local and global systems. But in many programs, social entrepreneurship is taught simply as social venture creation: pick a social issue, learn a bit about it, create a new product or service offering to impact change, and try to scale a company and potentially its impact. The problem with that model is that it is furthering a social change narrative based on individual organizational growth, leaving the onus of change on each individual social venture often in its own silo.
Changing unhealthy systems dynamics, however, requires a range of interconnected shifts, not just in new venture creation but in changing the structure of existing systems and the relationships between the actors within those systems.
Without changes at the system level, individualized results of new social ventures will have minimal impact on the wider issues of our time…As such, innovation and entrepreneurship educators have the opportunity, if not responsibility, to invite a wider systemic understanding of the interconnected and complex dynamics facing society.
Once we acknowledge the complexity and interconnectedness of social problems, it becomes immediately apparent that a siloed, single point intervention simply isn’t going to move the needle. Conventional tools like the Business Model Canvas and scaling models borrowed from the private sector, such as branch replication and social franchising, are woefully inadequate when aiming to create meaningful social change for entire populations.
After all, if there weren’t a market failure, conventional businesses would have stepped in to solve the problem already. And if there weren’t a need for system change, there wouldn’t be powerful incumbents vested in the system’s status quo because it benefits them personally. As the executive of a major US foundation told me recently, “There’s so much talk now about making money while doing good. We’re asking these entrepreneurs to overcome market failures, deliver public goods, and make a buck. But it doesn’t often work out that way, because the market is broken.”
In contrast, a curriculum imbuing students with a systems mindset prioritizes a different set of skills, including the abilities to:
●Incorporate multiple perspectives into a deep understanding of the root causes of a particular problem - especially the social and cultural norms, belief systems, and power dynamics at play; artfully expressed as “the conditions holding the problem in place” by Peter Senge, John Kania, and Mark Kramer in The Water of System Change;
● Create collective understanding and a common agenda among many different individuals and institutions working (often at cross-purposes) in a particular system, recognising that each of them brings their own agenda, worldview, technical jargon, and yes, ego, to the table;
● Challenge assumptions and biases (both yours and others); to influence others over whom you have no formal authority; and to cultivate an openness to learning and adaptation as some approaches start yielding results and others underperform (or even worse, cause harm);
● Build and maintain trust and forward momentum of partners over long stretches of time (generally years, not months) and across significant distance (with partners often based on multiple continents) - despite the inevitable resistance, setbacks, and even sabotage that come with territory of trying to make systems more inclusive.
The second pedagogical priority for elite universities that are serious about walking the talk of social entrepreneurship and social innovation is to figure out how to bring individuals with lived experience into the classroom setting. A common mismatch with how social entrepreneurship courses and business plan competitions are currently administered - worldwide, not just in the US - is that students are often motivated to work on problems they have never personally experienced. Homelessness. Incarceration. Smallholder farmers in Africa. You name it.
There is a growing critique of educators, professors, and funders who give accolades and money to students so they can go out and solve problems they haven’t lived and don’t actually understand. “Wasting limited resources on shallow solutions to complex problems,” indeed. Just as misguided, in my view, those with lived experience - meaning, the homeless, convicts, smallholder farmers, etc. - are often viewed only as potential clients, beneficiaries, users, or focus group participants, rather than as leaders, co-creators, and pioneers of social change in their own right.
This is provoking some influential thinkers - particularly in emerging markets - to criticize social entrepreneurship as exhibiting traces of neo-colonialism. And indeed, in Kenya and elsewhere, there’s now a backlash brewing because the lion’s share of investment capital is being channeled into enterprises started by Caucasian expats. This is a very serious, even existential issue, that deserves serious attention.
The outcome of the growing social entrepreneurship movement cannot be to reinforce existing power paradigms and perpetuate our current gender, race, and caste systems of inequality. If so, it will threaten the movement’s very credibility.
For social innovation education to be effective, we need to start meaningfully valuing and engaging those with ‘lived experience’ in social entrepreneurship courses and degree programs, elevate them as leaders and changemakers, and open a very thoughtful and serious debate about power and privilege. Many social entrepreneurship programs and accelerators are grappling with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda more earnestly, and even taking measures to address bias in their selection processes.
While university selection processes are by definition elitist - the admissions process only selects applicants with the right credentials, scores, grades, etc. - it’s nevertheless essential for universities to reflect on what else they could do. There are some pioneering efforts in this direction we can learn from. The Graduate School of Business at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, for example, just built a satellite campus in a township next to the airport. All MBA students and graduate students must take at least one class in that campus, and each class taught on that campus has a few slots designated for residents of the township.
As my third and last reflection, I would strongly encourage university administrators and business school deans to integrate inner development work and wellbeing into their curriculum. Fluffy? On the contrary. In working with the Schwab Foundation’s global community of highly successful, scaled, acclaimed social entrepreneurs over the past decade, I have come to believe that the self is foundational for effective social change.
Devoting your talents, brainpower, and career to creating transformative social and environmental change - well, it’s a tall order, and at the risk of stating the obvious, it is incredibly challenging work. The more we glamorise and cheerlead social entrepreneurship, the more we do a disservice to our students. As one highly successful, decorated social entrepreneur (whose organisation’s annual budget exceeds $100 million) recently told me:
“We have to start doing something differently, because the needle isn’t moving, and people are just burning themselves out.”
Any social entrepreneur who has a few years and a few successes (and failures!) under his or her belt will tell you this path requires wrestling with - and coping strategies for - a multitude of negative, even at times overwhelming, emotions: fear of failure, anger and moral outrage at the status quo, insecurity and rejection when your funding proposal gets turned down, envy and jealousy of another organization’s or entrepreneur’s success, imposter syndrome, unprocessed trauma from your own past, anxiety about meeting payroll, sadness about the living conditions of or injustices faced by the people you are serving, shame and inadequacy at not being able to do more for them, burnout and depression - the list goes on.
Do most MBA programmes equip graduates with the self-awareness, emotional resilience, and tools for self-inquiry and inner work they need to manage their own emotions and wellbeing as they go down this path?
That feels like a rhetorical question, so I won’t bother answering it. But helping students acquire these tools and cultivate these skills is vital to their success. Here the University of Virginia’s Student Flourishing Initiative, which started seven years ago, can be particularly instructive. About 400 students go through the flourishing course every year, and the educators are now designing a toolkit for other universities to use.
During the weekly Contemplative Lab, in groups of 20 working with a teaching assistant, students are taught new ways of watching themselves - practices for their bodies and minds, visualization techniques, coordinated breathing, body scans to cultivate a deeper awareness of how their body feels, etc. And in the larger lecture hall each week they explore and discuss a different dimension of human flourishing such as compassion, diversity, interdependence, and courage. The overarching objective of the course is to help students bring a different perspective and attention to their practices and a deeper sense of self-awareness about whether those practices are aligned with their deepest values.
And all MBA graduates can benefit from that.
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