社会企业家日渐增长的影响力

　　10年前，很少有人听说过“社会企业家”这个字眼。现在，政治家和商人却竞相追逐社会企业家，以期他们用创造性的方式去解决庞大的社会问题。为了拼命满足社会各方的要求，政府也急切地渴望寻求那些比传统官僚更具创意的人们的帮助。

　　正如本期特别报道所指出的，各家企业都想参与实现社会责任的活动，但是创业计划仍然是驱使他们“通过行善做生意”的动力。社会企业家现在拥有一个能兑现承诺的名声，特别是当尤努斯（MuhammadYunus），这位社会企业家的老祖宗获得诺贝尔和平奖以后。他因为多年前创立了GrameenBank（一家小额金融信贷机构）而获此殊荣。

　　施瓦布社会企业家基金会

　　本周，一部分世界最顶尖的社会企业家聚集到苏黎士，参加由施瓦布社会企业家基金会组织的年终峰会。创立世界经济论坛的传奇人物KlausSchwab将于本周晚些时候在达沃斯出席会议。数年前，他发起了第一届社会企业家峰会，但是现在明显地感到社会企业家已经成为主流，而这一峰会也到达了目的。这些人是一个多元化的群体，非常多元以至于很难看出到底什么样的人才是社会企业家。

　　峰会当中有一个讨论会，其出席人员包括：一位法国妇女，她开了一家公司专为那些在非正常时间工作的家庭照看儿童；一位捷克妇女，她为家庭暴力的受害者开通求助热线，甚至发起一场修改法律的运动，迫使施暴者（而不是受害者）离开家庭；一位来自智利的创业者，他建立了专为高危家庭提供辅导的机构；还有一位墨西哥人，他创立了一家为穷人免费播放幕布电影的公司，其资金则来自大公司的广告业务收入。

　　毫无疑问，这些人都颇有企业家精神，但是，“社会”究竟意味着什么就很不明确了。由PetraVitousova发起的那家捷克的机构——BilyKruhBezpeci，从来就没有盈利过，并且也不打算这么做。与之形成鲜明对比的是，墨西哥Cinepop机构的总经理ArielZylbersztejn却吹嘘说，自己建立的娱乐平台让企业和政府能够瞄准原本不得其门而入的市场。他有着雄伟的扩张计划，远不限于中国。社会企业家的招牌是能为他带来真金白银的。

　　诚然，他和PetraVitousova都在做着自己感兴趣的事情，并且从对方那里得到灵感和激励。或许，“社会企业家”如何定义并不重要，只要这些让人难忘的人们能够因为自己是群体中的一份子而感到开心就好了。

　　施瓦布基金会的运作人PamelaHartigan觉得这些社会企业家的共同之处就在于，他们是一群“不可理喻的人”。她把这个称呼看作是一种恭维。实际上，她与JohnElkington刚刚合作完成一本有意思的书，John是可持续发展（Sustainability）这家咨询机构的创始人。这本书的名字就叫做“不可理喻者的力量：社会企业家如何创造市场并改变世界”，这个名字得益于剧作家肖伯纳曾经说过的一句话，“理性的人调整自己适应世界，不可理喻的人却执意让世界来适应他。所以，一切进步都倚赖于不可理喻的人。（“Thereasonablemanadaptshimselftotheworld,theunreasonableonepersistsintryingtoadapttheworldtohimself.Thereforeallprogressdependsontheunreasonableman.”）”

　　该书的主旨在于，现有的企业应该仔细地审视并且随时准备投资于各种形式的社会企业活动，这将有助于在意想不到的地方侦测到获利的机遇，而不仅仅限于所谓“金字塔底层”的穷苦消费者。尤努斯就证明了哪怕是最穷的借款者也能成为好的客户。因此，大量的寻租资本都跟着涌向世界各地的小额信贷行业。Hartigan和Elkington猜想社会企业家将会发现更多新的盈利行业。

　　和招商引资的业务一样，社会企业家正逐步拓展其与政府的合作关系。确实，让这群人聚集到苏黎士的最大动因（除了不可理喻的共性之外）就是，他们意识到，如果他们想做得更大，他们就必须与政府或者企业（抑或同时与两者）搞好关系。

　　早先的时候，社会企业家认为自己是企业或者政府的一种替代。如今，他们希望成为合伙人，并把企业和政府视为可以调动的资产。只要不让他们的创造力泯灭或让他们变得更加理性，这些都算是好事。

　　从某种角度来看，社会企业家的事业已经走到了十字路口。随着知晓的人越来越多，对社会企业家的期望也越来越高。接下来的几年中，这些期望是否合理而社会企业家能否兑现将会一见分晓了。这都取决于他们精通管理一家成长型机构的能力，包括从合适的预算编制、人事政策到继任者计划以及公司治理的各个方面。

　　不可理喻的人并不总是擅长这些平庸的琐事。此外，这些聚集到苏黎士的社会企业家构成了一个紧密的团体，凭借建立起来的长期人际关系，他们采取非传统的方式来解决问题、寻找资源。为了融入主流，他们必须适应更为开放和非个人化的环境。

　　但是话说回来，如果社会企业家们的下一阶段发展顺利的话，商界和政界都会得到显著的改善，而不仅仅是那些最贫困和最糟糕的国家和地区。或许，最终的结果是，如果你没有企业家精神，你就不会被视为有效的政治/社会活动家；如果你未能关注社会需求，你也不会被视为成功的企业家。在那样的情况下，社会企业家（不管是什么意思）这个词就没有存在的必要了。然而，从字典中被抹去正好昭示了它的胜利。那么，期盼这样的事情又算不算“不可理喻”呢？

TEN years ago, few people had heard the term “social entrepreneur”. Now, to be a social entrepreneur is to be sought after by politicians and businessmen alike for your potential to solve big social challenges in innovative ways. Governments, increasingly struggling to meet society’s demands, are desperate for help from someone more creative than the typical bureaucrat.

Businesses, as this week’s special report in The Economist makes clear (see article), want to engage in socially responsible but still entrepreneurial schemes that let them “do well by doing good”. Social entrepreneurs now have a reputation for being able to deliver, especially since the grand-daddy of social entrepreneurship, Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a couple of years ago for founding Grameen Bank, a micro-finance powerhouse.

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

Ariel Zylbersztejn of CinepopThis week, some of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs have gathered near Zurich for the final annual summit organised by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Klaus Schwab, the legendary founder of the World Economic Forum, which meets later this week in Davos, convened the first summit a few years ago, but now apparently feels that social entrepreneurs are sufficiently mainstream that the event has served its purpose. They are an extraordinarily diverse bunch—so much so that it is not at all obvious what it means to be a social entrepreneur.

One session brought together a French woman who runs a company that provides childcare to parents with unusual working hours, a Czech woman who set up a helpline for victims of domestic violence and then campaigned to change the law so that perpetrators rather than victims have to leave the family home, a Chilean founder of an organisation that provides coaching for at-risk families, and a Mexican who has built a for-profit company that provides free movies to poor people on inflatable screens, funded by advertisements from big companies.

Each of them was entrepreneurial, certainly, but quite what “social” means is less clear. The Czech organisation, Bily Kruh Bezpeci, founded by Petra Vitousova, is never going to turn a profit, nor should it try to do so. Ariel Zylbersztejn, the managing director of Mexico’s Cinepop, by contrast, boasts that his entertainment-based platform allows business and government to target otherwise inaccessible markets. He has ambitious plans to expand, not least to China. His brand of social entrepreneurship could make him rich.

Still, both he and Ms Vitousova are doing interesting things, and they seemed to find inspiration from each other. Perhaps it does not really matter exactly how “social entrepreneur” is defined if such impressive people feel good and part of a supportive community when they use the term to describe themselves.

 Pamela Hartigan, who runs the Schwab Foundation, seems to think what all these social entrepreneurs have in common is that they are “unreasonable people”. She means this as a compliment. Indeed, she has just written a fascinating book, with John Elkington, the founder of Sustainability, a consultancy, celebrating “The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets and Change the World.” The title is inspired by playwright George Bernard Shaw, who once said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The gist of the book is that established businesses should carefully watch—and be ready to invest in—various forms of social entrepreneurship, which tend to be good at spotting profitable opportunities in unlikely places, not least amongst poorer consumers at the so-called “bottom of the pyramid”. Mr Yunus has showed that even the poorest borrowers can be good customers, and as a result huge amounts of profit-seeking capital have flowed into the microfinance industry all over the world. Ms Hartigan and Mr Elkington reckon that social entrepreneurs will uncover other profitable new industries.

As well as courting business, social entrepreneurs are also increasingly looking to expand into partnerships with governments. Indeed, the strongest theme uniting the social entrepreneurs in Zurich (besides their unreasonableness) is the realisation that they need to work with government or business, or both, if they are to succeed on the large scale to which they aspire.

In the early days, social entrepreneurs saw themselves as an alternative to business or government. Today, they want to be partners, seeing business and government as assets to be leveraged. This is probably a good thing, provided it does not dull their creativity or cause them to be more reasonable.

In some ways, social entrepreneurship has reached a crossroads. As it has become better known, expectations have been raised; the next few years will show whether these expectations are justified and these social entrepreneurs can deliver. This will depend on them mastering the nitty-gritty of managing a growing organisation, including everything from a proper budgeting process and human-resource policies to succession planning and corporate governance.

Unreasonable people are not always gifted at such mundane tasks. Moreover, the community of social entrepreneurs gathered in Zurich is tight, built on long-standing personal connections that allow them to solve problems and find resources in unorthodox ways. To go mainstream will require adapting to a more open and perhaps more impersonal environment.

Yet, if the next phase in the evolution of the social entrepreneur goes well, both business and government will be significantly improved, not least in the poorer and less well-run parts of the world. Perhaps, eventually, it will be impossible to be regarded as an effective politician or social activist if you are not also entrepreneurial, or a successful entrepreneur if you do not address social needs. In that case, the term social entrepreneur, whatever it means, will no longer be necessary—but its disappearance from the dictionary will symbolise its triumph. Is that such an unreasonable thing to hope for?

Unreasonable people power

Jan 22nd 2008
From Economist.com