Empowering Change: Unpacking Haugh’s Vision for Social Entrepreneurship
Paper Name: Haugh, H. (2005), A research agenda for social entrepreneurship.
Objectives of the paper:
This paper covers a few different areas but there is a specific area I want to focus in on which is the Research themes that Haugh proposes researchers should focus on to better help Social Enterprises.
The paper notes that Social Enterprise research, specifically in the UK, lacks standards and universally accepted definitions. It’s important to note that this paper is dated 2005 but a fair question would be to ask how much has changed and although I do think standards have improved over time definitions have only increased in volume which for Social Enterprise Owners, policy makers or anyone involved in the space, isn’t helpful.
Initial thoughts on the paper:
Written in 2005, this paper remains very relevant today. Although advances have been made in the social enterprise space there is still a lot to do and sometimes it feels we have found and created more definitions rather than reducing them for accuracy. Although this paper would primarily benefit researchers there is still value in there for policy makers, social entrepreneurs, and anyone working in the social enterprise sector.
Takeaways from the paper:
Now, let’s look at how this paper can be applied by a social entrepreneur. The first thing that jumps out here is the importance of analysis, in particular Business Analysis. Although important to do at the start of any venture it can be done anytime and should be done regularly to help navigate changing landscapes over time.
In an ideal world your enterprise would have a dedicated Business Analyst role that can analyse and monitor market trends, legal frameworks and policy to help grow the enterprise. With that said, an extra role can be costly so let's refine that idea into what could be a Business Analyst culture. This might take the form of brainstorming sessions or creating a group that meets weekly that analyse these topics for the enterprise. It could be made up of senior leaders but a diverse spread from all levels would help gather more insights.
Another key takeaway is the vital importance of opportunity and innovation recognition. Similar to the above point this takes a lot of vigilance but can also take the form of not being afraid to experiment with ideas. Ideas can only be valuable to the enterprise when they are executed so experimentation should be part of the process.
Performance measurement and overall measurement of your enterprises outcomes is another takeaway from this paper. Although important I think it’s even more important to recognise how difficult it can be to measure things like impact. With that said, it’s not impossible and tools and techniques will vary from enterprise to enterprise based on a number of different factors such as size and overall mode of operation. How many people your enterprise impacts is a universal measurement technique for social enterprises that is arguably one of the best ways to measure the enterprise’s performance. Benchmarking the enterprise against itself is probably a good way to do this. For example, if you impacted 100 people last year, 120 people this year then a good goal would be higher than 120 next year and if that goal is not met its a good opportunity to review what may have caused that. This of course is a simple example but the idea of measuring performance does not need to be over complicated. How many people you impact, cash flow, donations, number of branches etc. can give you great insight on where to improve.
Although this paper is titled “A research agenda for social entrepreneurship”, practitioners should not dismiss this. Whether you own or work in a social enterprise you are researching the field everyday by seeing how it operates, how it can improve and most importantly how it can grow.
