Conscious Entrepreneurship in the University Context

In this article, you will learn about the factors that influence a university social entrepreneurship project’s successful performance and a useful social innovation model.

Conscious Entrepreneurship in the University Context
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“It is essential to consider that every venture must be social; it is impossible to continue creating businesses whose sole function is to generate profits.”

Innovation drives competitive and productive social endeavors that are engines for social and economic development. It is essential to consider that every venture must be social; it is impossible to continue creating businesses whose sole function is to generate profits. There is evidence that, since the 1930s, the concept of “corporate social responsibility” has been addressed (Kolb, 2008); however, it has failed to permeate the entire business sphere. Therefore, it is essential to seed this thinking into the new university generations‘ training so that the new endeavors are born with this renewed vision.

Conscious entrepreneurship is born with the vocation of becoming a good for society that generates value in three areas: 1) environmental, 2) social, and 3) economic. It is not directed toward palliative practices to mitigate the harm that might be caused; instead, it intentionally seeks to address social needs and improve the quality of people’s lives. Its impact would be positive or at least neutral, in such a way that the starting point is not to harm.

“We have found that only one in twenty traditional university entrepreneurship projects progresses to the “market prototype” stage, while one in ten social endeavors do this.”

What factors affect the successful performance of a university social entrepreneurship project? To answer this question, we carried out research work that evaluated the success of social endeavors in the student context based on the scope of their implementation, i.e., they had reached at least the testing phase of the market prototype. In this article, I share the internal initiatives and the social entrepreneurship projects of our most outstanding students and the research results.

International social entrepreneurship initiatives

The paradigm of conscious entrepreneurship based on social needs is a worldwide trend. Initiatives such as the Grameen Bank of Muhammed Yunus stand out, which grants microcredits in Bangladesh to enable people to start their businesses and get out of poverty. There are hybrid business models such as BayCat, which, through the education and training of low-income youth, prepares them for employment opportunities by training them to produce video content using the storytelling technique to end discrimination. Prison Art, led by Jorge Cueto, is an initiative to reintegrate prisoners into society by developing artistic skills to produce unique handcrafted pieces marketed as premium products worldwide.

Social entrepreneurship projects developed by students and teachers at Tec de Monterrey, Morelia campus

  • Prothesia (low-cost prostheses made in 3D printing) is dedicated to creating software tools for the design and manufacture of accessible and customizable medical supports such as orthoses and prostheses.

  • Projecting Magical Villages: Tzintzuntzan. Students co-created products and services with artisans and citizens from Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán, to promote social and economic development for the community. It was carried out during an interdisciplinary semester in which six different subjects were integrated.

  • Innovation in the Value Chain: Benito Juárez Zoological Park. Students made and implemented proposals to change public perception of the State Zoo’s function to generate higher revenue for the support of the species under its tutelage and conservation. The duration of this activity was one semester and involved three different subjects.

  • I am an Entrepreneurial Woman. It is an initiative where students coordinate and train at-risk women to start their businesses to improve their quality of life.

  • In Action for Education. It is an initiative of high school prep students who succeeded in ensuring that high school students at risk of dropout achieved 99% continuity in school.

  • Uapasï. It is an enterprise that markets Sahuayo huaraches with fair trade design and practices.

Research Project

The research carried out had as its starting point the identification beforehand of the factors that could impede the implementation and satisfactory conclusion of the social projects initiated by the students. The research assumed that the causes of the highest incidence would be the culture of the communities served, the development of projects based on common sense, and the dependence on the enthusiasm and drive of the students most involved in each project. One of the main barriers to social innovation is the lack of cultural empathy between the entrepreneurs and the communities and the lack of essential structure in the process, according to Ramsés Gómez Molina, director of Ashoka U for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean in 2017.

Based on the above, the need to determine clearly and precisely which factors play in favor and against the progress of a social venture or innovation became crucial. The aim was to create a useful social innovation model, which ensures greater fluidity in its performance and greater efficiency in solving social problems.

The research conducted was qualitative with a phenomenological design. The principal findings were that the community’s depth of engagement appeared as the first factor that influences the success or failure of the project, above the personal characteristics of the social change agents and the profile of the community, and the innovative tools offered to the students.

The depth achieved in engaging with the community triggers trusting relationships with the social group members. They become empowered actors of the project, generating empathy and commitment, going from a vision of “them” to “us,” and from “their” reality to “our” reality. On the other hand, the student is transformed by building self-confidence and, most importantly, a conviction and passion for social change.

Four approaches to generating new entrepreneurial projects

    1. Support projects with tangible resources to reinforce the current community assets to improve their image, production processes, or quality.

  1. Development projects aim to hone community members’ skills, such as “In Action for Education.”

  2. Business projects that strive to boost the local economy with better use of community resources.

  3. Personal development projects seek to empower community members by capitalizing on their personal, social, and cultural assets, such as the “I Am Entrepreneurial Woman” project.

With this perspective, I propose a model of social entrepreneurship development for students comprising the following phases (see Figure 1):


Image 1: Learning Model for Conscious Entrepreneurship, López, L. 2018, doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2018.1832

Image 1: Learning Model for Conscious Entrepreneurship, López, L. 2018, doi: 10.21125/edulearn.2018.1832

This model is in an embryonic phase. It is the first conclusion from the experiences of the projects mentioned above. The following steps involve experimentation and feedback to verify that the identified variables of influence contribute effectively to the projects’ success.

We invite professors involved in entrepreneurship and social innovation to initiate a conversation to experience this model, enrich it, and build joint strategies to increase our students’ projects’ success in these areas of knowledge.

About the author

Lilia Patricia López Vázquez (lilia.lopezv@tec.mx) is a professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Morelia Campus. She has a Ph.D. in Administration. Her line of research is Corporate Social Responsibility. She is a senior business consultant and has more than 25 years of teaching experience at the professional and postgraduate levels.

References

Kolb, R. W. (2008). Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. SAGE Publications, Inc.

López, L & Ruiz, C. (2018) Social Innovation Hub. Developing a Model on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Edulearn18. 10th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies. ISBN: 978-84-09-02709-5 ISSN: 2340-1117 DOI: 10.21125/edulearn.2018.1832

Mackey, J. & Sisodia, R. Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.

Editing by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Lilia Patricia López Vázquez

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0