In my previous post, I mentioned that there needs to be more knowledge on social entrepreneurship. But then, I've come across this article on "social INTRApreneurship". What is that?!
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| Image from www.entrepreneurnews.com.au |
What is a Social Intrapreneur?
Interesting as they are, the greatest agents of change are unlikely
to be social entrepreneurs, but rather those working for large companies
who have the ability to see avenues for new markets and to leverage
resources to create better products, according to The Economist. Paul Polak,
social entrepreneur and founder of International Development
Enterprises, a company that produces low-cost solutions for
small-time farmers, explained that big
business is the key to scaling solutions to problems such as poverty. Those driving change within these corporations are the
social intrapreneurs or in other words, “corporate social entrepreneurs”.
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| Image from www.behance.net |
Social intrapreneurs are capable of making a positive impact to their
business and for the world, and wish to align societal needs and
business value. They possess characteristics similar to social
entrepreneurs, yet they are able to navigate massively complex systems
to get things done with scale and impact because of the fact that they are HUGE people in the corporate industry. And they are thus, surrounded by
the resources to be able to create much more change for the better. Together, these social intrapreneurs make for an army ready to attack
– social and environmental problems that are being faced in this world.
While social entrepreneurship has deeper roots, having existed way back in the day and only being officially known in the 1970s, the first mention of
social intrapreneurship or "corporate social entrepreneurship" came in place in the
early 2000s and was more of an observation of the role an employee (intrinsically-driven by personal values). Today however, social intrapreneurship is the result of global market
failures, increased expectations of businesses’ role in society, and a
shift in personal values and motivation to build more sustainable
business structures to help solve the many existing social issues.
I do wonder though... Will social intrapreneurship be here for the long-run?
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| Image from www.sustainablebrands.com |
I would imagine that while these big corporate individuals have the drive to make great changes, their
journey would be filled with many many challenges. Social intrapreneurs would typically work all on their own and play the role of a social intrapreneur in addition to
their normal day-to-day tasks. Though the light has switched on for them and
some of their colleagues, many describe their companies as slow-moving
and simply aren’t able to adjust to the change in trying to be more social than profitable.
Challenges
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| Image from www.behance.net |
As the article mentioned, the first reaction these social intrapreneurs would face to any new idea is a straight out “no”.
Their colleagues would counter their proposals by saying “This is a
distraction”, “Poor people have no money”, or “We’re not in that
business”. In turn, they face the risk of losing out on promotions and
salary increases, and even losing their jobs. The numbers don’t lie - they show that social intrapreneurship can be
short-lived and may not actually last for the long run. It was reported that four years after SustainAbility’s report launched, just
under half of social intrapreneurs interviewed remain at their
companies.
Still, those who have gone through a light bulb moment tend to remain
committed to the idea of aligning social and business values, and have
moved on to other bigger (and better!) roles.
There is hope that social intrapreneurs would stir much great change in the world, but if all else fails, we still have all our social entrepreneurs to come in and save us!
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| Image from www.karmakonsum.de |
References
Ip, M. (2013, January 8). Social intrapreneurship - an idea whose time has come. In
social enterprise buzz. Retrieved on 26th January 2013 from
http://www.socialenterprisebuzz.com/2013/01/08/social-intrapreneurship-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/