Title: The Role of Social
Entrepreneurship
in National Development
Abstract:
A work done in
collective
efforts is easier, more energizing, highly empowering and sure to be
successful.
To give an example from an old parable “A group of birds flew over a
net
well laid out with juicy grains over a barn by an intelligent farmer.
The
immature inexperienced birds swooped down against much resistance and
words
of advise by the mature and experienced birds, which fell into wrong
ears
driven by the greed of instant returns. Lo they soon realized their
mistake
and found themselves totally trapped irrespective of their struggle.
Then
one wise bird suggested to them that they all fly together at one shot,
and
lo the net was carried away by them working in unison. They could soon
find
their way to a rat, who did cut up the ropes piece by piece, liberating
them
and giving them a life long lesson”. What could our entrepreneurs learn
from
this? Simple -that “United We stand. Divided We Fall”. Taking a cause
beyond
oneself would result in sure success, while doing it for one’s own
interest
would result in short sighted (myopic) gains that may be detrimental in
the
long run. Unity would result in reduced duplication of energy,
optimization
of resources, easier effortless path to success. How can this be
brought
about? Is it possible or is it a myth? It is real, easily possible by
determined
collective thinking and team working of people. This is called “Social
Entrepreneurship”.
This is the collective promotion of entrepreneurship with a social
consciousness
with a clearly defined commitment of being a contributory to Society
through
a consciousness beyond oneself. To assess the issues related to Social
Entrepreneurship
and outline a model for stakeholders in future a brief conceptual paper
was
prepared. This was born of discussions with appropriate authorities and
professors
involved with entrepreneurial development and research, based on which
key
issues were identified and brought out in this paper. In depth analysis
would
be made with literature reviews after references and queries (or
experiences
narrated) by readers and persons involved with similar
experiments
as well as further in depth literature studies in similar areas though
this
is relatively new, the earlier studies being analytical and exploratory
and
not as reflective as this paper is conceived to be.
Author: M. V. Shetty
