Entrepreneurship for Social Change

Cybersecurity and data protection concerns have gained notoriety in past years intensified by the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica “scandal” in early 2018, which exposed millions of individual data. This case revealed that both regulatory measures and data protection mechanisms were, and still are, insufficient, with several countries reforming or promulgating new legislation. The Article 19 EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains controversial extra-territorial provisions, which might violate State Sovereignty principles. It is still unknown how the GDPR will be implemented. This chapter reveals data protection as an Ethics discipline, considering that it is a fundamental right of individuals to share or not to share data, vis-á-vis the rights to have the personal data well-protected. The empirical research will be developed based on the need to build up a concept of Responsible Entrepreneurship in the technology sector, applied to cross-border e-commerce. The Digital Silk Road is the case study selected since it represents a complex international cooperation initiative done without institutionalization yet with eminent data surveillance concerns when building network infrastructure and satellite navigation systems.

Strong growth and social progress have made Brazil one of the world’s leading economies over the past three decades, but Brazil remains a highly unequal country with an urgent need for reforms to sustain and continue development with inclusive growth. This chapter introduces sustainable foreign direct investments (FDIs), which can be tools to promote sustainable development and improve the living conditions of all Brazilians, thus representing entrepreneurship for social change in Brazil. Although there is a large recognition that FDIs might pave the way for sustainable development, it does not happen in an automatic way and, in this chapter, some instruments are presented as pathways for achieving that aim in Brazil. First, it analyses the scenario of inequalities in Brazil and a call for more sustainable private investments to achieve social inclusion. Next, it introduces the state of the art of Brazil’s framework and legislation on sustainable FDIs. Last, it presents initiatives on financing and promotion of sustainable development in Brazil. This chapter comes to a conclusion that Brazil has taken the first steps, but much more has to be done in order to effectively introduce sustainable FDIs as entrepreneurial tools for social inclusion, reduction of inequalities and better conditions of life for all Brazilians.

The overall objective of this research was to elucidate the ecosystem of women’s health social enterprises (WHSEs) based in the United States. The Aim I was to conduct a secondary data analysis of a random national sample of non-profit WHSEs based in the United States regarding their characteristics and areas of intervention. Aim II was to conduct a qualitative assessment of a sample of WHSEs based in the United States regarding their perspectives on the ecosystem of WHSEs. Aim I utilized the GuideStar database and assessed enterprise size, geographic location, financial distress, health intervention area, and health activity category using descriptive statistics, statistical tests, and multivariable regression analysis via SPSS. Aim II utilized in-depth interviewing and grounded theory analysis via MAXQDA 2018 to identify novel themes and core categories while using an established framework for mapping social enterprise ecosystems as a scaffold.

Aim I findings suggest that WHSE activity is more predominant in the south region of the United States but not geographically concentrated around cities previously identified as social enterprise hubs. WHSEs take a comprehensive approach to women’s health, often simultaneously focusing on multiple areas of health interventions. Although most WHSEs demonstrate a risk for financial distress, very few exhibited severe risk. Risk for financial distress was not significantly associated with any of the measured enterprise characteristics. Aim II generated four core categories of findings that describe the ecosystem of WHSE: (1) comprehensive, community-based, and culturally adaptive care; (2) interdependent innovation in systems, finances, and communication; (3) interdisciplinary, cross-enterprise collaboration; and (4) women’s health as the foundation for family and population health. These findings are consistent with the three-failures theory for non-profit organizations, particularly that WHSEs address government failure by focusing on the unmet women’s health needs of the underserved populations (in contrast to the supply of services supported by the median voter) and address the market failure of over exclusion through strategies such as cross-subsidization and price discrimination. While WHSEs operate with levels of financial risk and are subject to the voluntary sector failure of philanthropic insufficiency, the data also show that they act to remediate other threats of voluntary failure.

Aim I findings highlight the importance of understanding financial performance of WHSEs. Also, lack of significant associations between our assessed enterprise characteristics and their financial risk suggests need for additional research to identify factors that influence financial performance of WHSE. Aim II findings show that WHSEs are currently engaged in complex care coordination and comprehensive biopsychosocial care for women and their families, suggesting that these enterprises may serve as a model for improving women’s health and health care. The community-oriented and interdisciplinary nature of WHSE as highlighted by our study may also serve as a unique approach for research and education purposes. Additional research on the ecosystem of WHSE is needed in order to better inform generalizability of our findings and to elucidate how WHSE interventions may be integrated into policies and practices to improve women’s health.

Controversy in the literature exists over whether self-employment is driven by worker’s deliberate entrepreneurial choices (pull factors) or an indeliberate subsistence employment option (push factors) in developing countries. It is therefore very important to investigate whether the self-employed are the dynamic entrepreneurial group or the subsistence-oriented group. In this chapter, the authors examine the driving forces behind the plausible growth of self-employment in urban and rural Nigeria by analyzing the self-employment choices as a function of employment’s differences in predicted earnings, human capital, demographic and family characteristics. Using the 2010/2011 and 2012/2013 waves of the General Household Survey Panel data for Nigeria, this chapter utilizes the Random Effects Regression Models (OLS and Probit Models). This chapter finds that the predicted individual earning differences between self- and paid-employment has a negative significant effect on self-employment choices – contrary to developed countries’ evidence. In other words, overwhelmingly the poor are “entrepreneurs.” This therefore means that self-employment choice is driven by the necessity of survival – the subsistence self-employed groups rather than the dynamic entrepreneurial hypothesis. The implication of these finding is unique and interesting for an African country such as Nigeria where the self-employees are vulnerable to poverty and perhaps an involuntary employment option conditioned by economic failures.

In this chapter, the authors focus on the development of the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry in China. As a modern borrowing platform, P2P lending allows clients to obtain funding from peer lenders for a multitude of loan purposes, including credit consolidation, personal purchases, and the development of business ventures. However, the speed at which this industry has grown has created numerous problems for regulatory agencies, particularly in China, the largest P2P lending market in the world. This chapter examines how lenders in the Chinese context continue to function as formal institutions regulating this sector continue to grow following a series of highly publicized illegal lending activities in recent years. Additionally, the authors determine whether implemented regulatory measures are providing an overall benefit or detriment to the Chinese P2P lending industry. Finally, the authors highlight the potential for positive social change and social entrepreneurship arising from P2P lending, particularly in terms of the empowerment of traditionally disadvantaged groups by providing access to capital. The authors use the P2P lending industry in the United States, currently the second largest in the world and one operating in a highly regulated financial industry, as a comparison for the Chinese case.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine the optimal path of development of social entrepreneurship in Russia and Central Asian countries by performing a scenario analysis of the development of social entrepreneurship and analyzing the opinions of interested parties regarding the outcome of social entrepreneurship in Russia and Central Asian states. The authors’ recommendations for the practical implementation of the optimal path of social entrepreneurship development are described.

The scenario analysis of statistical data showed that the existing practice of standardization of social companies’ activities hinders their executing their functions on raising the quality of life. With the expansion of freedom of social entrepreneurship, the population’s quality of life grows; on the contrary, the increase of state regulation leads to its reduction. The findings show that social entrepreneurship in Russia and Central Asian countries is interested in private investments and social companies’ employees. That is why the representatives of these categories of concerned parties support de-regulation. Consumers of social goods and services are interested in obtaining them freely and thus prefer standardization.

This chapter presents a new direction of social entrepreneurship analysis – by determining the correlation between economic freedom and quality of life. This opens an opportunity for thorough social entrepreneurship research based on authentic and objective quantitative (statistical) data. The obtained conclusions and offered recommendations allow using the mechanism of public–private entrepreneurship for turning social entrepreneurship into something more valuable and useful – a tool for increasing the quality of the population’s life.

This chapter investigates the trends in international and European legal and policy regulation of the process related to carbon capture and storage (CCS). The global endeavor that seeks to limit carbon dioxide emissions has come to recognize CCS as an indispensable ally. This chapter offers an up-to-date and comprehensive commentary to the relatively new and developing area of international regulation of the process of CCS, a dimension that might yield significant effects on the environment and, overall, sustainable development. It reveals a constantly growing trend of an enhanced awareness about the indispensable role and effects of the CCS on wider climate aspirations and, to that effect, also a need for a stable and effective international regulatory framework. The key barriers that are preventing the wider implementation of CCS projects, however, relate primarily to two extra-regulatory processes, which is the policy uncertainty at national levels and financial shortcomings. This background presents a window of opportunity for entrepreneurship and policy invention.

In 2017, US federal agencies awarded over $86 billion in contracts to small businesses owned by members of under-represented groups (minorities, women, service-disabled veterans, and certified businesses located in economically distressed areas). The vast scale and scope of public procurement coupled with policies for supporting small disadvantaged businesses may drive federal agencies toward greater inclusiveness in awarding contracts, which may shape broader societal patterns of economic participation and social equity. However, the level of inclusiveness varies considerably across different federal agencies. The authors posit that differences in three key organizational mechanisms associated with federal agencies’ decision-making processes – administrative discretion, workplace discrimination, and legislative oversight – influence an agency’s level of inclusiveness in awarding contracts. They test these ideas using the annual small business procurement activities of 41 federal agencies, large and small, from 2002 to 2011. The authors find empirical evidence for economically significant effects of discretion, discrimination, and oversight on an agency’s inclusiveness in awarding contracts and discuss the scholarly, managerial, and policy implications.

How are city demographics correlated with the amount of venture capital they receive? This chapter uses a unique dataset of 58,000 venture deals from 2000 to 2014 from the CrunchBase dataset and census data from the same period. Place and the role of venture capital asserts venture capital’s spatial dependency and uses statistical software to find a strong positive correlation between the amount of venture capital funding and foreign, international, male professionals within a city, the gendering of venture capital, and the negative correlation of unskilled, foreign labor with funding.

As venture capital travels along social ties, this chapter suggests that foreign, international, and male professionals’ positive correlation may be due to these members having a wider and more diverse social network, allowing the ability to conjure funds. Moreover, the demographic may be a synonym for Sassen’s International Class, allowing the study to dovetail with a broader set of research. Finally, this chapter also provides a mechanism to classify cities based off their venture capital activity. The implications of this study are a better understanding of the trends correlated with venture capital, a classification system for cities, and a possible caveat to “virtuous cycle” theory. A supplement to the paper and to visualize implications for cities, we also created this D3 visualization visualizing the geographic positioning and relationships of those 58,000 deals, providing communicable and interactive research.