The
Management Department
Department
Seminar Series
Nevena Radoynovska
KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT
Thursday,
December 7th
2017
Room N517
at 10:00 am
(5.00
p.m
in Singapore)
Theme: “Entrepreneuring Your
Life” or Entrepreneurship for Growth: Means Versus Ends-Based Theories of
Social Impact Through Entrepreneurship”
Abstract: "How
do organizational actors in local entrepreneurial ecosystems understand their
role in tackling “grand challenges” and effecting social change? National
governments and supranational institutions increasingly promote
entrepreneurship as a solution to socio-economic disparities across
individuals, communities and regions. Yet, despite impressive growth in public
and scholarly attention to the latter, we know surprisingly little about how,
and to what extent, such initiatives succeed or fail in achieving social
impact. This paper argues that a primary reason for the inconclusive evidence
is that, although scholarship has recognized the multifaceted nature of the
input (different forms of entrepreneurship), it assumes a much narrower
conceptualization of the outcome (social impact), without adequately examining
how organizations construe their role in effecting social change. This paper
builds on recent theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of private
organizations in positive social change by studying an initiative to promote
entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities in France (colloquially known as banlieues). I take a grounded-theory approach,
relying on 46 interviews with entrepreneurs and organizations that support
entrepreneurs(hip) in the banlieues, as well as archival and observational
data. I theorize that what appears to be a broad policy towards reducing
community inequalities through entrepreneurship is translated locally by
organizations as two distinct approaches: a means- versus an ends-based
approach. Notably, the latter constitute divergent organizational theories of
social impact, based on different (1) targets of impact, (2) measures of
impact, and (3) identified barriers to achieving impact, across multiple levels
(individual, community, societal). Ultimately, means- versus ends-based
theories carry distinct implications for evaluating organizations’ social
impact. The paper contributes to a cross-level perspective on the relationship
between organizations, entrepreneurship, and positive social change."
