Corporate Entrepreneurship vs Social Entrepreneurship

Corporate Entrepreneurship

Corporate Entrepreneurship has been recognized as a prospectively viable means for promoting and maintaining the performance, renewal and corporate competitiveness of an organization over the past couple of decades.....

The entrepreneurial activities assist organizations to develop new business-lines that further sources for revenues. Corporate Entrepreneurship activities also improve a company’s work culture by promoting product and process innovations, thus leading to success. 

Corporate Entrepreneurship is incorporating risk bearing, pro-activeness and progressive product innovations. These Corporate Entrepreneurship activities can enhance organizational growth and profitability and, their impact may increase over time depending on the organization’s competitive environment. The practical evidence is gripping that Corporate Entrepreneurship boosts company’s performance by enhancing the firm’s pro-activeness and willingness to bear risks, and by instigating the development of new products, process and services by upgrading its competitiveness.

Creation of corporate entrepreneurial activity is not an easy task as it involves changing the internal behavioral patterns of an organization. The environment plays a major role and radical influencing. It has been agreed on that the external environment is an important factor leading to Corporate Entrepreneurship.

Corporate Entrepreneurship has been known for renewing and revitalizing current companies. It serves as a tool for business development, revenue growth, profitability enhancement and instigating, developing and innovating products, services and processes (Kuratko et al., Lumpkin & Dess, Miles & Covin, Zahra, Zahra & Covin, Zahra et al.).

Social Entrepreneurship

A rapidly growing and dynamic sector of the industry today, social entrepreneurs play a pivotal role in providing products and services with the prime motive of creating social well-being, operating from a 3-tier bottom line perspective benefitting People, Planet, and Profit. Profit in the social enterprises is reinvested into the enterprise rather than being distributed among the stakeholders and founders. Social enterprises operate on different models. Such enterprises have an entirely different legal structure created, thus distinguishing them from charities, in being self-sustaining through income. Social enterprises have been persistently survived for any economy and contribute remarkably to the revenues.

Social entrepreneurship prioritizes far beyond just generating a profit, and measures its performance based on the impact the business makes on the society as well as economy. This responsibility of focusing on generating and maximizing positive social returns differentiates the social entrepreneurial business from the conventional and outdated “corporate social responsibility” approaches which tend to occur only when healthy profits have been made by the businesses.

People finding meaning in their work are shifting to social entrepreneurship which kills two birds with one arrow by helping the society and succeeding in their ambitions with a different approach altogether. Social entrepreneurs are demographically spread across the world from young to old and from different type of background, stature, and education.

Social entrepreneurs are innovators who commit themselves to the need of the society, and on making products and services that solve social issues and problems. Unlike traditional startups and business ventures, their goal is to make the world a better place to live in, and not to take market share or to generate profits for the founders. Social entrepreneurs may be categorized as:

•     Nonprofit

•     For-profit, or

•     Hybrid.
  

Christopher Poizat, Founder & President of International Network of Social-Eco Entrepreneurs has defined Social Entrepreneurs as, “people who recognize social problems, decide to roll up their sleeves and get into action using entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to implement social change that is sustainable, good for the planet and for the highest good of humanity.”
 

Are social entrepreneurs really ‘Entrepreneurs’?

The social entrepreneurs truly possess entrepreneurial traits, but with a completely different mindset and skill sets. They are the ones who are wholly and solely involved in activities benefiting the society and focus on its well-being. They mainly emphasize on impacting the social, economic, and cultural environment of the nation in a positive and constructive manner. Social Entrepreneurs want to make a difference to the world: they are passionate and eager about the cause that they have chosen and are highly motivated and enthused about their mission to change the society and help the ones in need.
 
Corporate Entrepreneurship vs Social Entrepreneurship

Basis	Corporate Entrepreneurship	Social Entrepreneurship
Main Objective	Building a business and maximizing profits	Creating social change
Wealth Creation	Wealth is same as Profits	Wealth means creating and maintaining social and environmental capital
Measure of Profitability	Benefiting shareholders and investors	Engage in for-profit activities
Investors	Venture Capitalists	Philanthropists
Emphasis on Team and Individual	Venture Capitalists invest in business on the basis of company’s leadership team and the organization supporting it	Individuals raise and donate money for charitable causes on the basis of viability of the project gauged by the individual in charge.
Performance Measurement	Corporate entrepreneurs can rely on relatively tangible and quantifiable measures of performance such as financial indicators, market share, customer satisfaction, and quality.	Measuring social change is difficult due to its non-quantifiable and multi-causal characteristics, and perceptive differences of the social impact created.

Entrepreneurs whether social, corporate or any other, majorly focus on creating profits whether for the organization or social well-being. The foremost responsibility is to benefit the people either inside or outside the organization. The entrepreneurs tend to start a business venture in order to bring changes in their lifestyle, and routine, and tend to boost social and economic development. Entrepreneurship is generating a business, starting and running a new business, and maintaining it in a long-run. Entrepreneurs take and bear risks, are focused, determined, innovative and creative, confident and bold, posses a can-do and go-getter attitude. 

They are self-motivated and have strong work ethics and people skills. The best part about entrepreneurship is that the business idea can be small or big, whether in an urban area or rural, involving any amount of capital, tangible or intangible, its gives an opportunity to grow and make changes in the society to the person or group generating the idea. These changes can range from generating employment opportunities to impacting the society in a positive manner.

Encouraging the idea and concept of entrepreneurship always leads to more improved and satisfied economy, as it gives the liberty to the people to turn their dream or idea into a full-fledged business plan, further generating employment, which leads to improved standards of living and welfare of the people, further resulting into a developed economy. Entrepreneurs are considered as the national assets to be encouraged, motivated and remunerated to the best extent.

Entrepreneurs have a powerful ability to change the way a society survives and runs. If successful, their innovations might enhance our standards of living. In short, an entrepreneur not only creates wealth and generates profits from the business venture, but also they also create jobs and the conditions for a developing society.