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Research on Balancing Ideal and Reality in Social Entrepreneurship: Request from Practitioner

  • 1.  Research on Balancing Ideal and Reality in Social Entrepreneurship: Request from Practitioner

    Posted 09-22-2014 17:51

    Dear colleagues,


    I am looking for research on leadership challenges that social entrepreneurs are facing when trying to balance their ideal and the reality they operate in.


    I am a practitioner, currently in the process of co-founding a leadership training company, and we are interviewing social entrepreneurs to test our hypothesis regarding the needs of our potential customers. Below I am providing a sample story we captured to give you an idea of what we are looking for.


    Is there any rigorous research, especially focusing on US social entrepreneurs, that would help us as practitioners better understand how important the issue of balancing ideal and reality is for social entrepreneurs, how this issue manifests in their practice, and what strategies they use to address related challenges? I would appreciate your referrals, and could also consider ideas for scholar-practitioner collaboration in this area.


    Cordially,


    Fedor Ovchinnikov

    Co-Founder, Institute for Evolutionary Leadership

    Director of Practitioner Empowerment, Academy of Management Practice Theme Committee

    Past Chair of the Communications Committee, Academy of Management Entrepreneurship Division


    P.S. Interview Response Sample (name and type of business removed for confidentiality reasons)


    We talk to local businesses about how our collaboration could benefit them, meaning that they could have more profits. And then we also say that they could get a community and other non-monetary benefits for free. We have to speak language that they understand. If you start asking people to make a monetary sacrifice for the ideal, the response rate would be very low. If our clients have to give up some of their profits in order to stay in collaboration with us, we would probably have zero (or at least no more than five) businesses who would do it.


    Internal struggle though is even more important for us than external. We are self-funded, so we are trying to reach a very big objective with very little cash flow (we don’t want to take angel/VC money or money from anyone else focusing on maximizing financial return, but we are looking for grants and thinking about a crowdfunding campaign). Therefore it is very difficult to demand time commitment from team members who are basically not paid for what they do. Since they are not paid, they are only willing to do the easy and sexy work, and nobody wants to do the nitty-gritty hard work that must be done, so I usually end up doing this work myself.


    Balancing ideal with reality is always an issue. The ideal is something that excites people, but you cannot start with the ideal, you have to start with where you are. When I try to demand something from my team members, I face a lot of push back, so I don’t have the level of accountability in the team that I need. I am now the only one holding an overall strategic vision, but I still have to do most of the nitty-gritty work myself, which is a real challenge.


    I also need a larger team, up to 80 people for the Bay Area. If I get more money, I would hire folks. I would still want them to be aligned with my vision, but the level of this alignment could be lower that I demand from the core team.


    We also have issues with power distribution, meaning we need more structure regarding who makes what decision and why. Currently we have a very flat, trust-based decision-making. I try to ask my team members for their thoughts before I make any important decision, but other people tend to make such decisions on their own, which often affects the whole team and can lead to serious issues like overspent, etc.


  • 2.  Call for Papers - EURAM 2015 - T_01-02: Equality and Inclusion in Social Enterprises - SIG: Business for Society

    Posted 09-26-2014 15:28
    Apologies for cross-postings

    CALL FOR PAPERS - T_01-02: Equality and Inclusion in Social
    Enterprises - SIG: Business for Society
    EURAM 2015, 17-20 JUNE, WARSAW

    ORGANISERS
    Dr Olivia Kyriakidou, Assistant Professor in Management and
    Organizational Behavior, Athens University of Economics and Business,
    Athens, Greece, email: okyriakidou@aueb.gr
    Dr Helen Salavou, Assistant Professor in Management, Athens University
    of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece, email: esalav@aueb.gr

    DESCRIPTION

    Social enterprises have attracted wide academic and policy interest
    recently as they are meant to play a crucial role in providing
    services, employment and social capital in local economies. Social
    enterprises are also claimed that can tackle inequality through social
    inclusion programs and promoting diversity. However, little is known
    about whether they achieve these claims in practice and the ways and
    mechanisms they use in order to materialize and institutionalize such
    claims. The present stream therefore examines the extent to which
    social enterprises are tackling equality, inclusion and diversity
    issues or whether they are reinforcing existing patterns of inequality.

    Papers may include micro-level organizational studies as well as
    societal and cultural analyses on a larger scale. Submissions may
    address, but are not limited to, the following fields:

    • Theorizing diversity management and inclusion in hybrid
    organizations and social enterprises – How marginal identities are
    constructed in social enterprise work settings? What type of
    managerial behaviors in social enterprises might institutionalize
    discriminatory or inclusionary practices in social enterprises? Are
    there gender differences in the role of social entrepreneurship within
    society?
    • Gendered divisions of labor in social enterprises – Is there
    a gendered division of labor in social enterprises? How is
    “competence” understood in social enterprises and how does this affect
    gendered divisions of work? Are there gender differences in pay in
    social enterprises? How do gendered divisions of work affect women’s
    and men’s career possibilities in social enterprises? Are there
    different sectors of activities involving women and men within
    different localities?
    • Gender and leadership in social enterprises – What is the
    gender structuring of social enterprises? Are there gendered
    discourses of management and leadership in social enterprises? Are
    there specific biases and gender-role stereotypes in leadership in
    social enterprises? What is the representation of women in the
    organizational governance of social enterprises? What are the reasons
    and motivations of becoming a social entrepreneur and are there any
    noticeable gender differences?
    • Diversity management in social enterprises - How do social
    enterprises formulate and administer diversity policies? How is
    diversity addressed not only in terms of gender norms, but also ethnic
    or religious composition? In the case of global social enterprises,
    how do they formulate and administer diversity policies in locations
    which differ substantially from those of their home country?
    • Masculinities and femininities in social enterprises and
    their relations – What are the personal characteristics of women and
    men involved, including gender differences and specificities, but also
    commonalities? Is business masculinity contested in social
    enterprises? Are there variations in “doing” masculinities and
    femininities in social enterprises? How do such variations in “doing”
    masculinities and femininities affect interaction and cooperation both
    within and between social enterprises?
    • Work-life balance in social enterprise work at both national
    and global scale – How is work-life balance conceptualized in social
    enterprises? How do professionals in social enterprises address the
    issues of work-life balance? How do they solve work-life problems?
    What are the disruptions of work-life balance that are different from
    those of employees employed by business corporations?
    • Gender and local social enterprise cultures in different
    parts of the world – How do national cultures regarding gender differ
    around the globe and how these feed into social enterprises culture?
    How do intersections with gender, such as education, ethnicity, race,
    age, married status, religion etc., affect work in social enterprises
    in different settings?
    • Gendered patterns of mobility in social enterprises - When
    and for whom is mobility – both moving “out” and moving “back home” –
    an option in social enterprises? What restrictions on mobility are
    faced by women and men? How does moving between locations affect
    career progress, work satisfaction, work-life balance and family
    relations of women and men in social enterprises? What do women and
    men gain from being mobile and what do they lose?
    • Equality and Inclusion: Success factors in new social
    ventures / enterprises

    Submissions will be done on-line on the EURAM 2015 website, from
    December 1st 2014 till January 13th 2015.

    For more information, please visit the conference website www.euram2015.org

    Olivia Kyriakidou | Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior
    Department of Business Administration | Athens University of Economics
    and Business Patision 76, 104 34 Athens
    Office: Central Building, 2nd floor | tel.: +30 210-8203384, 6972101617