Social Entrepreneurship From Sociological Perspective
Murat Şentürk, Enver MengüSocial entrepreneurship, which has become the focus of academic studies due to its contribution to economic progress and social development, refers to the implementation of entrepreneurship principles and techniques in order to produce innovative and deep solutions to social problems. Initially, social entrepreneurship aroused an interest in the social welfare production debate with the social policy approach which is supported by both voluntary and private sectors as well as the central government. Subsequently, Muhammed Yunus and Elinor Ostrom won Nobel Prizes in the field of social entrepreneurship, and this gave social entrepreneurship a greater reputation in academia. Social entrepreneurship, which is one of the most crucial aspects within the business discipline due to the field in which it occurs and the method it follows, also interacts with other disciplines with the effect of articulated structure. The purpose of this article is to show how social entrepreneurship contributes to the neglected social dimension in terms of sociological discipline. The study, which uses a descriptive approach and is based on the literature, also demonstrates a result in line with its purpose, namely the possibility of being sociological by way of the social mission which social entrepreneurship carries, the social capital it produces, the social change it brings forth, and the social movement it creates.
Sosyolojik Açıdan Sosyal Girişimcilik
Murat Şentürk, Enver Mengüİktisadi kalkınma ve toplumsal gelişmeye katkıları sebebiyle akademik çalışmaların ilgi odağına yerleşen sosyal girişimcilik, toplumsal sorunlara yenilikçi ve derinlikli çözüm üretme amacıyla girişimcilik ilkelerini ve tekniklerini kullanmayı ifade etmektedir. Öncelikle toplumsal refah üretimi tartışmasında merkezi yönetimin yanında gönülü ve özel sektörü de birer aktör olarak öne çıkaran sosyal politika yaklaşımıyla sosyal girişimcilik bir ilgi uyandırmıştır. Daha sonra ise Köylü Bankası modeliyle Muhammed Yunus ve Özel Mülkiyet modeliyle Elinor Ostrom’un sosyal girişimcilik alanında kazandıkları Nobel ödülleri olguya önemli bir ün kazandırmıştır. Ortaya çıktığı düzlem ve izlediği yöntem sebebiyle daha çok işletme disiplinine konu olan sosyal girişimcilik, eklemli yapısının etkisiyle diğer disiplinler tarafından da ele alınmaktadır. Bu makalede ise sosyal girişimcilik, sosyoloji disiplini çerçevesinde ele alınarak ihmal edilen toplumsal boyuta katkı sağlanması amaçlanmıştır. Nitekim sosyal girişimciliğin ürettiği yeni yaklaşımı kullanarak sorunlara çözüm aradığı toplumsal alan başlıca sosyolojik ilgiyi gerektirirken, eylemin konu olduğu insan unsuru ve sosyal girişim eylemine kaynaklık eden misyon da sosyolojik açıdan önem taşımaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda da literatüre dayanan ve betimleyici bir yaklaşım kullanan çalışmada sonuç olarak, sosyal girişimciliğin taşıdığı sosyal misyon, ürettiği sosyal sermaye, gerçekleştirdiği toplumsal değişim ve oluşturduğu toplumsal hareket yönüyle sosyolojik olma imkanı ortaya konulmuştur.
Social entrepreneurship, which has begun to attract the attention of academic studies, is a concept that is produced by combining social and entrepreneurship studies. By definition, social entrepreneurship refers to the creation of social changes by applying innovative solution proposals which are developed with the help of entrepreneurial principles and techniques to social problems. Social entrepreneurs prefer to focus on the structure of the issue itself in the struggle against social problems.
However, the articulated structure of the concept has led to a significant amount of confusion in the literature. On one hand, social entrepreneurs have claimed to exist in the past, though they were not mentioned by this name (Denizalp, 2009). On the other hand, this pair of words was used historically for the first time in 1980 by William Drayton, founder of the Ashoka Foundation. The period during which interest in social entrepreneurship increased and the period when the volunteer and private sectors emerged as actors alongside the central government seem to overlap.
Social entrepreneurship, especially in the 21st century, has increased its reputation in development discussions (Quarter, Ryan and Chan, 2014; Alvord, Brown and Letts, 2004, p. 280). Another development which contributed to this increase in interest was the granting of the Nobel Prize to social entrepreneurs in 2006 and 2009 (Gonçalves, 2016, p. 1587). The first award winner, Dr. Muhammed Yunus, was deemed worthy of the Nobel Prize for the Grameen, or Village, Bank model, which he started with $27 for women in Bangladesh while working as an economics professor at Chittagong University. These women were making stools from bamboo material but they left most of their earnings to loan sharks. Yunus developed the bank model to support women’s initiative. The second prize winner, Dr. Elinor Ostrom, while working as an economics professor at Indiana University, was awarded the Nobel Prize for improving a new reading of the governance factor, the reason for the global crisis. Ostrom’s “common ownership” approach demonstrates that associations have managed common ownership successfully alongside the public and private sectors. Muhammed Yunus, the producer of the micro-credit model, particularly, became the focus of interest for media, universities and social politicians with his achievement in winning the Nobel Prize in 2006 (Martin and Osberg, 2007, p. 30). In fact, with the global crisis in 2008, it was seen that social entrepreneurship was brought to the agenda for the problem of environment and poverty (Doherty, Haugh and Lyon, 2014, p. 417). Indeed, the progress of social entrepreneurship varies from country to country (Robinson, 2006, p. 96). In developed countries, it stands out as an alternative for the central state actor, while it is strengthened as a complement beyond being an alternative in developing countries (Özdevecioğlu and Cingöz, 2009, p. 82).
In addition to this increase in interest, the advancement of social entrepreneurship in the literature is also important. Social entrepreneurship, which was the subject of literature in the 1990s, experienced a problem concerning conceptual positioning until the 2000s. In fact, social entrepreneurship, which had previously been associated with the public sector, has expanded its boundaries over time to include the non-profit and for-profit sectors. During the post-2000 period, efforts to implement social entrepreneurship have been resolved, and the effort to define the content of social entrepreneurship with elements, principles and qualifications debates in academic studies has come to the fore. Recently, social entrepreneurs continue to be the subject of studies with their contributions to social development and organizational structures.
With this increase in interest, the hybrid structure of social entrepreneurship has attracted the attention of a number of different disciplines. Social entrepreneurship, which has succeeded in eluding the monopoly of the business discipline, is seen to have concentrated on various focuses in interdisciplinary studies. While it tries to produce solutions by introducing innovative approaches to social problems, it has not yet been dealt with sufficiently in the literature of sociology, although there are significant points that overlap with the discipline of sociology in the literature. For this purpose, the social entrepreneurship phenomenon will first be revealed and then social entrepreneurship will be discussed from a sociological point of view with the descriptive method. In this context, social entrepreneurship requires a sociological interest because of its mission and the form of capital it produces. One could also suggest that it is a sociological issue, considering the change and mobility it aims to achieve in society. This study aims to make a meaningful contribution to the speculative foundations of social entrepreneurship, though its conceptual discrepancy is yet to be solved.
