Responding to the commentary on ‘A neoliberal takeover of social entrepreneurship?’
This post is a follow up to the article 'A neoliberal takeover of social entrepreneurship?' that was originally published on Sept 19, 2016 in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Writing the article was cathartic – I had been really uncomfortable with the contrasts in social enterprise (SE) rhetoric and practice that I saw. Though I had met practitioners and academicians, who resonated those ideas, I was mentally prepared for a strong push back from those who disagreed. I was also concerned that my critique of the hyperbole around Social Entrepreneurship would be mistaken for a critique of SE itself.
The comments that I received, however, were a surprise – and a revelation. They were mostly complimentary. It confirmed my suspicion that there were lots of us who had doubts about where SE was heading, but had not yet structured their thoughts into critiques or were unwilling yet to speak up against something that was ‘trending’ so much. There were some who asked for clarifications about or disagreed with what they felt some statements meant, but even those agreed with the larger point being made by the article. Many of the respondents were practitioners who wrote to me with problems they were facing in managing their Social entrepreneurships because of being slotted as a ‘business’. Also, many shared with me similar articles or links to resources that could help give shape to the hybrid model that I spoke about.
What I sense from the responses is a general agreement that there does seem to be a creeping in of neoliberalism into Social Entrepreneurship and that people are concerned about how to address it. I also sensed that there is a feeling of being pitted against a big power and so a fear whether it is possible to address this issue or whether we should just wait and watch to let SE morph into something that gets pushed out of the social welfare spectrum altogether. In fact, some of the links shared with me were for social impact assessment tools for regular entrepreneurships – as a way to encourage people to adopt the nomenclature of socially responsible business rather than of Social Entrepreneurships. Many of the responses spoke about the need for likeminded Social Entrepreneurship advocates to get together to find ways of negating the ‘glamorous’ neoliberal pulls and pressures while retaining the essence of Social Entrepreneurship.
The responses have given me the way forward for the next article on the topic!!
This blog is part of the October 2016 series on Exploring the social enterprise landscape, in partnership with the World Bank Group and endeva. Read the whole series for insight and opinion on policy, business models and definitions from social entrepreneurs, policy makers and facilitators around the world.