Voluntas DOI 10.1007/s11266-017-9834-4 BOOK REVIEW
Teresa Chahine: Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2016, Textbook—292 pp, £44.99 Nicolae Cuta1
International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2017
Dr. Teresa Chahine is the Social Entrepreneurship Program Leader at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Center for Health and the Global Environment. She teaches social entrepreneurship at Harvard Chan School and Harvard Extension School. Since 2012, Dr. Chahine is also the Director of Alfanar Lebanon, a venture philanthropy organization supporting social entrepreneurs in Lebanon and Egypt. Based both on the author’s practical experience in working with social entrepreneurs around the world and on the course of social entrepreneurship she teaches, the content of the book includes exercises and learning tools (i.e. example boxes, discussion questions, planning templates, assignments) and plenty of case examples of social entrepreneurship from various sectors (health, environment, energy, education, agriculture, microfinance) from rural and urban areas around the world. Too, the book includes short interviews with some gurus of social entrepreneurship like: Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank), Bill Dryton (Ashoka) or Matt Flannery (Kiva). The author stated in the Preface that the purpose of the book is to acknowledge that the social entrepreneurs ‘‘have created and implemented effective, scalable and sustainable solutions to the most basic of human challenges’’ (p. xvii), making a huge difference for the underserved population around the world. The readers can pick a challenge of their choice and to create and develop a solution for it by applying the different learning tools and concepts from the book. The manual is structured in 6 modules and 13 chapters arranged in order that is easy to fallow, even if ‘‘this is not always the order in which social entrepreneurship takes place’’ (p. 13). Book Review Editor: Marc Jegers. & Nicolae Cuta
[email protected] 1
Social Economy Development Foundation, Craiova, Romania
123
Voluntas
One of the most important chapters in the economy of the book is Chap. 3—‘‘CoCreating with the Community’’, where the author introduces several basic concepts (like the community-driven research, the rights-based approach), presents important early processes in setting up the social venture (like community mobilizing, participatory planning), explains the importance of identifying and involving from the beginning the main stakeholders, provides simple and useful tools (like the interest and influence matrix for stakeholders or AAAQ checklist for solutions) and states two of the most valuable advices for a social entrepreneur: (I) ‘‘Being part of the community, living in it, and experiencing for yourself the social challenges it faces are always, always the first steps.’’ (p. 49) and (II) to consider the human capital an output for the social venture (not only an input). The 4th chapter introduces the concepts of user-centred design, blended perspectives, theory of change, incremental and/versus disruptive innovation. The main tools presented here are the theory of change table and the brainstorming rules. The most important advices the author gives in this chapter to the social entrepreneurs are (I) to design around the end user the solution of the social challenge they are tackling and (II) to fully immerse in the situation they try to improve (not to design the solutions from outside). Although, here the author should have had to emphasize the differences between testing and failing in social ventures, because -unlike the commercial ventures- in social businesses, the failure may cause serious and long lasting damages in the local social capital (lowering the social trust). Although the next two chapters are more market oriented, they include social ventures case studies and valuable advices for the social entrepreneurs regarding their customers: (I) ‘‘All people, no matter what their socioeconomic status, want the best for themselves […].’’ (p. 99) and (II) ‘‘[…] a shopper may make a one-time purchase to support a social cause, or a limited number of purchases, but what it takes to get a repeat customer is a […] great-value product.’’ (p. 100). Regarding choosing from the business models (presented in the 8th chapter) and the legal structures (presented in the 11th one), the author stresses that the ultimate responsibility of any social entrepreneur is ‘‘to deliver the largest social impact possible as it pertains to the social challenge and target audience […]’’ (p. 166). A motivational role plays the 10th chapter, where are presented a plenty of funding sources for the social ventures. The wealth of funding opportunities and the growing trend of social investment presented are able to make any social entrepreneur—that has identified a social challenge to work for—to go into action. Though finally the author advices the social entrepreneurs to be surrounded by nonfinancial support (networks being the greatest resource) she should have had to stress more in the book the tremendous role of the social capital in starting up and running a social enterprise. Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship is a comprehensive manual for the (potential) beginner social entrepreneurs that guides them step-by-step in developing and implementing a social venture.
123
