Centre for Social Entrepreneurship (CSE), School of Management and Labour Studies,

Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (India)

Social enterprises pursue activities with the greatest possible positive social and environmental effects (Barone, 2022). Social enterprises can flourish in a proper ecosystem. The ecosystems are such geographical areas where different entities come and interact with each other to support social enterprises. Social entrepreneurs drive change through innovative solutions supported by the Ecosystem. Social enterprises substantiate through activities to fulfill societal needs. In the United States, Barak Obama, after becoming the president, formed the Office of Social Innovation. It aimed to facilitate innovative social solutions and partnerships. Social innovations respond to the dissatisfaction created due to other innovations lacking community participation (Moulaert et al., 2013). Such innovations fail to share their benefits with a larger community. Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, therefore, is complex.

The 'study on the role of the start-up ecosystem in social entrepreneurship' is limited (Cheah & Ho, 2019). Innovation systems nowadays are becoming more oriented towards solving societal and environmental problems, followed by economic issues. Social entrepreneurship is a sector that aims to solve these problems (Gerli et al., 2021). Social entrepreneurs attempt to solve problems by collaborating with stakeholders leading to sustainable innovations (Kim et al., 2020). It becomes imperative for social entrepreneurship education programs to be designed to foster social entrepreneurs' abilities to enhance connectivity with relevant entities of the social enterprise ecosystem (ibid). The Ecosystem comprises the components, and the interaction of these components shall lead to an envisaged transformation of creating social entrepreneurs. As Isenberg (2011) stated, the entrepreneurial Ecosystem comprises six domains. These include policy, finance, Culture, support, human capital, and markets. A policy can provide a stimulating social business environment and hence the development. This presumption can lead to several questions concerning Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. It is said that Social Entrepreneurial Culture is a kind of development that takes time.

According to Asian Development Bank (2017), social enterprises operate in various fields, including finance, rural development, health, energy, and water. Impact investing does recognize as an alternative asset class. Skill development is an important area for social enterprise activity. Further research established a close relationship between these domains on entrepreneurial activities. Creating a robust ecosystem requires new institutions backed by demand-generating policies (Surie, 2017). At a grass root level, facilitating social entrepreneurs' entry and technological adoptions and linkages to resource acquisition would also matter (ibid). The social entrepreneurship ecosystem thus appears multifaceted. While asserting the roles in generating an innovation ecosystem, Dehayir et al. (2018) stated that an innovation ecosystem requires several functions. These roles are ecosystem leadership roles, direct value creation roles like supplier development, value creation support roles by experts, and entrepreneurial ecosystem roles comprising entrepreneurs, regulators, and sponsors.

While arguing that the entrepreneurship ecosystem is unique, Isenberg (2011) mentioned that Israel's entrepreneurial Ecosystem evolved due to military necessity and with no natural resources. In the context of proximity to European markets, foreign multinationals, and free education, Ireland's Ecosystem flourished. The continual accumulation of Taiwanese expatriates in the United States resulted in Taiwan's entrepreneurial Ecosystem. In a situation created due to the various regional policies, China's Ecosystem is now evolving. Among the Asian nations with a flourishing social enterprise sector are Singapore and the Philippines (Asian Development Bank, 2017). Do the obvious questions come from what is happening in India and South Asia? How is the social entrepreneurial Ecosystem evolving? Hence by considering the outcomes from various research conducted at different time phases and the research gaps, if any, about an understanding of the social entrepreneurial Ecosystem, we at the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management and Labour Studies, TISS, Mumbai, are organizing the South Asian Conference on "Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem" from 17 to January 19, 2024. We invite research scholars and practitioners to submit their works for discussion and deliberations.

For more details about the conference paper theme and sub-themes, conference registration guidlines, accomodation, access the conference website link: 

https://tiss.edu/view/5/homepage-data/homepage-events-and-announcements/south-asian-conference-on-social-entrepreneurial-e/

Submission Guidelines

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to ...

Dr. Surendra Kansara, 

Conference Convener,

Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management & Labour Studies,

Tata Institute of Social Sciences,

V. N. Purav Marg, Deonar, Mumbai 400 088 (Maharashtra, India)

Telephone (Office): + 91 22 2552 5813

Email: cse.conference@tiss.edu