Abstract
This book praises social entrepreneurs all over the world and in particular some of the initiatives that the author, Beverly Schwartz, has come across through the organization Ashoka, which engages, promotes, and develops this emerging field. I write as one who shares the vision of people engaged in making the world a little bit better from a social point of view, so I confess my bias. But I have also followed the development of this emerging field long enough to see that it is not always without problems. Development—and specifically social entrepreneurship’s relation to development—needs to be discussed and problematized from different perspectives, and I will address this below.
Ashoka was initiated by Bill Drayton in 1980 in Washington D.C. with the aim to find and foster social entrepreneurs all over the world. Since then, the organization has found and collaborated with “over 3,000 social entrepreneurs in more than 70 countries” (ashoka.org). The author of Rippling is also the vice president of Ashoka. In the book she shares her story and that of others in a nuanced and well written book about pivotal issues in society and how social entrepreneurship can relate to these issues.
In the course of the book, the reader meets 18 social entrepreneurs and the social issues they address: a young Peruvian woman who was not only the first female director of the municipality but also the initiator of a community-based waste management system turning garbage into reusable resources; a Nepalese woman engaging to change the situation for widows who are not only exposed to the loss of their husbands but also to the loss of rights, property, and freedom; a Palestinian returnee who engages in nurturing a peaceful resistance among children whose lives are characterized by violence and despair—just to mention a few. Their stories engage and seduce the reader, and construct a number of arguments about human beings, social relations, and society that have become well-known through Ashoka’s work during the last decades. The author explicitly underlines her awe and amazement with regard to these initiatives and the positive connotation of the movement surrounding them.
Based on years of experience and engagement, Schwartz first and foremost highlights the stories presented in the book. These descriptions are intertwined with a call for and fostering of future social entrepreneurs or supporters of social entrepreneurship. The stories are furthermore related to five basic principles of systematic and lasting change: the restructuring of institutional norms; changing market dynamics; using market forces to create social value; advancing full citizenship; and, finally, the cultivation of empathy. The concept of “rippling” is used as a metaphor to describe how innovations are spread from social entrepreneurship initiatives to the rest of the world.
One of many contributions of this book is the nuanced and thoughtful argumentation of the possibilities of what social entrepreneurship can realize everyday in several places in the world. It is inspiring and encouraging to hear these accounts. Even if the aim of the book is not academic, it does raise questions along the way that are worth reflecting on. The arguments raised are, however, reconstructed and at times taken for granted as assumptions in an emerging field in which Ashoka is seen as an icon for many practitioners, policy makers, and researchers. I want to raise these questions in the following sections not to critique the statements in the book as such, but rather to take the opportunity to reflect on issues that ought to be discussed in this young and intriguing field.
In the foreword, the founder of Ashoka, Bill Drayton, sets the stage that Schwartz later dwells on by arguing that we live in a time where transformation accelerates, everything changes, and old social systems fail fast (p. XI). As I read this, I recalled how I was questioned by sociologists and historians when I started as a researcher in this field over a decade ago. “What is new?” they asked me, “Do you really think you can change the world that easily?” I tried to come up with all sorts of answers until I listened properly to their question. At the same time, I reread the well-known entrepreneurship scholar Joseph Schumpeter. He writes about new combinations of resources, market relations, means of production or ways to organize an industry (later also applied in other spheres than traditional industries; 1934). There are very few initiatives that are totally new. I even think that all of the cases presented in the book could be rewritten as descriptions of yet another entrepreneurial initiative in this or that tradition, slightly altered to suit the specific setting, the people involved, and the specific time. But at times these inventions bring change and, according to Schumpter, not only within a specific context but also spread through and even change the system in a radical way.
I do welcome the rich description of the cases in the book. They contribute to our understanding of certain initiatives that, in my opinion, are specific expressions of what might be a universal phenomenon that is shaped according to time, place, and other contextual factors. This does not make it less important as a part of understanding development. But the idea that the cases in the book represent one out of several versions of social entrepreneurship even strengthens the reasons to disclose, reflect, and analyze this phenomenon. This book contributes through a presentation of one of these versions. Social entrepreneurship as elaborated on in this book presents what Alex Nicholls described as a hero entrepreneur logic with business model ideals promoted by paradigm building actors such as Ashoka (2010). To me, this is currently a strong movement that will hopefully contribute to make peoples’ lives a bit better. But it is not the only expression of social entrepreneurship. There are other versions that draw on slightly different ideals such as collective movements aiming to influence publically sanctioned changes to improve living conditions or activist initiatives and even questioning what is known as market forces.
There is, however, an aspect of social entrepreneurship and social change that is hardly touched on in the book. The longer I work with social development and social entrepreneurs trying to respond to needs, or rather what they perceive to be necessary to act on (for further discussion see Gawell, 2012), and change fundamental inequalities with the best of intentions, the more I become aware of the need to acknowledge and reflect on power structures both in practice and research.
I’ll highlight three aspects of power structures reflected in the book. First, the issue of whose interpretation is prioritized when needs, value creation, and social change are discussed and acted on. In this book it is the social entrepreneurs’, the promoters’, and, of course, the author’s interpretations we read. The social entrepreneurs are presented as cocreators. But where are the voices of the beneficiaries or others that also need change? How do they perceive the cocreation relationship? Do they agree that these initiatives are the best?
Second, the social entrepreneurs are made of flesh and blood just like any one of us, even if social entrepreneurship might, at times, be ascribed superhuman qualities (p. 238). They influence, they lead, and therefore they become powerful. How can they manage to continue to be good leaders and not turn into stiff-necked patrons? Or how can the construction of leadership in this emerging field contribute to continuously empower and to decrease inequalities?
The third aspect is rather a reminder of the strength of some structures that I think we all want to change. Even if we see everyone as equals as human beings, the conditions we are born into differ tremendously. To change these conditions is a huge task. Social entrepreneurs can contribute to reach the goals of this struggle, but can they solve it? And how can social entrepreneurship respond to needs that on an everyday basis require a lot of resources? Will social entrepreneurs manage to persist day after day, year after year? I wish I could say I believe history would wipe these questions away—but then I would have to shut my eyes and ears—and I do not believe that would be fruitful.
Concluding, I believe some of the issues that social entrepreneurship responds to are universal, and the book Rippling reminds us and inspires us by sharing an approach and several initiatives of how this struggle can be conducted. It is an inspiring read both for practitioners and academics. It leaves me with a warm smile—even though as a researcher, I argue that the field needs to combine action with critical reflection. The book Rippling is a highly worthy contribution to such dialogue.