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Observatoire du Management Alternatif Alternative Management Observatory __ Cahier de recherche

Networks of Social Entrepreneurs in India

Alban Leveau-Vallier 07 Juin 2011 Majeure Alternative Management – HEC Paris 2010-2011

Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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Les réseaux d'entrepreneurs sociaux en Inde. Ce cahier de recherche a été réalisé sous la forme initiale d’un mémoire de recherche dans le cadre de la Majeure Alternative Management, spécialité de troisième année du programme Grande Ecole d’HEC Paris. Il a été dirigé par Eve Chiapello, Professeure à HEC Paris, coResponsable de la Majeure Alternative Management et soutenu le 07 juin 2011 en présence de Claire Dambrin.

Résumé : Ce mémoire traite de la constitution des réseaux d'entrepreneurs sociaux en Inde. Les entrepreneurs sociaux ont été divisés en deux groupes, pour les besoins de l'enquête et pour permettre une meilleure compréhension des réseaux : les entrepreneurs sociaux indiens traditionnels, d'une part, et globaux d'autre part. Ces deux groupes rivalisent pour emporter la domination dans le champ entrepreneurial. Ce mémoire cherche à comprendre qui sont les plus influents entrepreneurs sociaux en Inde, quelles sont leurs caractéristiques et à quel groupe ils appartiennent. Il établit une typologie et une cartographie des principaux évènements ayant eu trait, en Inde, à l'entrepreneuriat social, permettant de saisir les contours et réalités des réseaux indiens d'entrepreneurs sociaux.

Mots-clés : Entrepreneuriat social, Mouvement social, Inde, Réseau

Networks of Social Entrepreneurs India This research was originally presented as a research essay within the framework of the thirdyear HEC Paris business school program. The essay has been supervised by Professor Eve Chiappello, Professor at HEC Paris and Head of the Department of Alternative Management, and delivered on June, 7th 2011 in the presence of Professor Claire Dambrin. Abstract : This paper aims at deciphering and mapping the network of social entrepreneurs in India. We consider that social entrepreneurs in India belong to two main groups, competing for the domination of the social entrepreneurship field : the traditional and the global Indian social entrepreneurs. This paper establishes who are the main social entrepreneurs, the more influent, to which group they belong, and what are they characteristics. It proposes a cartography and and a typology of events. As we consider that events are nodes that shape a network, this cartography and typology is also a way of deciphering the network of social entrepreneurs. Key words : Social entrepreneurship, Network, Social movement, India Charte Ethique de l'Observatoire du Management Alternatif Les documents de l'Observatoire du Management Alternatif sont publiés sous licence Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/fr/ pour promouvoir l'égalité de partage des ressources intellectuelles et le libre accès aux connaissances. L'exactitude, la fiabilité et la validité des renseignements ou opinions diffusés par l'Observatoire du Management Alternatif relèvent de la responsabilité exclusive de leurs auteurs.


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Table of Contents Introduction...............................................................................................................................4 Part 1. Background...................................................................................................................5 1.1 Definitions.....................................................................................................................5 1.2 India............................................................................................................................14 1.3 Origins of a Concept...................................................................................................21 Part 2. Theory..........................................................................................................................29 2.1 Western Influence........................................................................................................29 2.2 A Cartography.............................................................................................................31 2.3 Conflicts......................................................................................................................33 Part 3. Methodology................................................................................................................36 3.1 Exploration..................................................................................................................36 3.2 Readings......................................................................................................................38 3.3 Event analysis ............................................................................................................39 Part 4. Results..........................................................................................................................42 4.1 Events Regarding Social Entrepreneurship in India...................................................42 4.2 Speakers......................................................................................................................81 4.3 Social Entrepreneurs in India : a Movement.............................................................100 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................106 Bibliography..........................................................................................................................107 Books and research papers..............................................................................................107 Websites...........................................................................................................................111 Appendix 1: Global Indians.................................................................................................113 Appendix 2 Events................................................................................................................117


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Introduction Social entrepreneurs are a national pride in India. Some of their outstanding successes, like the Aravind Eye Care Hospital, gained a nationwide fame. In fact, Indians are very good at following the example of Gandhi and taking up social challenges. Nevertheless, a huge part of Indian social entrepreneurs differ from Gandhi regarding their lifestyle, their background and their philosophy. In fact, there is an emerging group of people that turned to social entrepreneurship after working in the finance and information and telecommunication (IT) area. They have a specific background : they are businessmen or engineers, they worked or studied in the United States. They have their particular definition of social entrepreneurship : they think that development issues should be tackled with a market-based approach. In a word, they strongly differ with the rural, non-profit, traditional social entrepreneurs that have been tackling social issues in India since the example set by Gandhi. Nevertheless, their influence has dramatically increased in India during the last years. They have been transforming the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in India, changing its definition and its methods. Who are the Indians corresponding to this profile? What is their ideal-type? What is their influence in the social entrepreneurship network in India? What structures their movement? What are their relations with the non-profit and traditional social entrepreneurs? In this paper we will first set the background. We will define some core concepts regarding these questions : what is a social entrepreneur, a social network, a social movement, an idealtype. We will consider the Gandhian influence on social entrepreneurship and compare it to the Western influence that shapes the new generation of social entrepreneurs. Then, we will build a cartography of social entrepreneurs thanks to an analysis of the ten main events regarding social entrepreneurship that took place in 2010 in India. It will help us to define the structure of the network and identify the main social entrepreneurs. Our conclusion is that there are two groups social entrepreneurs that compete in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in India : Gandhian social entrepreneurs and Global Indians turned social entrepreneurs.


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Part 1. Background 1.1 Definitions 1.1.1. Social Entrepreneurship

Origins of the concept Bill Drayton is considered as a pioneer of social entrepreneurship1. A former Mc Kinsey associate, he came up with the idea of combining the skills of classical entrepreneurs and the social goals of change-makers. He was one of the first to consider that traditional management techniques and financial mechanism could be used in the social sector. In 1980, he created the Ashoka foundation whose aim is to bring these techniques – thanks to former Mc Kinsey consultants – to those who were beginning to be called social entrepreneurs. It is interesting to notice that “Ashoka” is the name of an Indian emperor of the third century before Christ who is famous for having promoted peace and buddhism after he had conquered a huge empire. After appearing on the field and in the press, the “social entrepreneur” concept came to the university. In 1993, the Harvard Business School created the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative2. Scholars started to work on the concept while more foundations were created to support social entrepreneurs (Schwab, Skoll, the Acumen Fund...). In 1998, J. Gregory Dees wrote a paper in which he explained why more and more “nonprofit organizations are looking for commercial ways to raise more funds”3: during the nineties eighties the Welfare State lost his prominent role in the economy. More social organization were being created and fundraising became increasingly hard. Tools from the science of management were being imported in the social sector to increase their efficiency and their ability to raise funds. Dees’ paper was positive, he described how the social sector was changing, but also normative: it 1

Harb, D. (2010) “Le mouvement des entrepreneurs sociaux, une nouvelle initiative de promotion et de développement de l'entrepreneuriat social en France”. Mémoire de master en science du management. HEC Paris available for download at http://appli7.hec.fr/amo/fiche_detail.php?num=134 2

Seghers, V. and Allemand, S. (2007) L’audace des entrepreneurs sociaux. Paris, Editions Autrement. P.9 3 Dees, J.G. (1998) “Entreprising non-profits” Harvard Business Review vol. 76 pp 55-67 Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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provided a management “toolkit” to help social organizations4. Like Dees, American scholars and social workers saw the social enterprise movement as a great thing: it meant more efficiency and more independence for change-makers. Marc Abelès described how entrepreneurs who turned affluent thanks to high-technology developed a tradition of becoming “venture philanthropists” who injected a market-based approach and management techniques in non governmental organizations (NGOs) and foundations5.

An Academic Definition Martin and Osberg give a strict definition of social entrepreneurs: “We define social entrepreneurship as having the following three components: (1) identifying a stable but inherently unjust equilibrium that causes the exclusion, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity that lacks the financial means or political clout to achieve any transformative benefit on its own; (2) identifying an opportunity in this unjust equilibrium, developing a social value proposition, and bringing to bear inspiration, creativity, direct action, courage, and fortitude, thereby challenging the stable State’s hegemony; and (3) forging a new, stable equilibrium that releases trapped potential or alleviates the suffering of the targeted group, and through imitation and the creation of a stable ecosystem around the new equilibrium ensuring a better future for the targeted group and even society at large.”6 The social entrepreneurs are, above all, those who provide a new equilibrium that heals a social problem. Therefore, according to Martin and Osberg, no matter if they make profit or not, and if they create a company or an NGO. “Ventures created by social entrepreneurs can certainly generate income, and they can be organized as either not-for-profits or for-profits. What distinguishes social entrepreneurship is the primacy of social benefit, […].”7

Ibid Abelès, Marc (2002) Les nouveaux riches. Un ethnologue dans la Silicon Valley Odile Jacob, Paris 6 Martin, Roger L. Osberg, Sally.(2007) “Social Entrepreneurship, The Case For A Definition”. Stanford Social Innovation Review Spring 2007 7 Ibid 4 5


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In order to distinguish from other forms of social action, they exclude social service, arguing that it does not bring new solutions to the problems and is not leading to a new equilibrium, as well as social activism, on the ground that social activism is not endeavoring direct action but impulses changes through intermediaries: social activists try to convince governments and societies to act, but they don’t take direct action.

Source: Martin, Roger L. Osberg, Sally.(2007) “Social Entrepreneurship, The Case For A Definition”. Stanford Social Innovation Review Spring 2007 Martin and Roger’s definition is clear and simple, but actual social entrepreneurs have sometimes more complex characteristics, as the authors themselves acknowledge. “It is important to distinguish between these types of social ventures in their pure forms, but in the real world there are probably more hybrid models than pure forms.”8

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Ibid Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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Using Criteria On The Field In order to avoid confusion on the field, where most of the chan-gemakers built “hybrid models” it might be wise to rely on strict criteria, rather than a definition. If the change-maker matches all the criteria, he is a social entrepreneur. Nobel price Mohammad Yunus proposed a bunch of seven criteria in his last book9 but we will rather quote the criteria used by Ashoka. The reason is that Ashoka consultants had to answer the question: “Is this a social entrepreneur or not?” every day since 1980 and answered “yes” in more than two thousand case. By nominating “fellows”, Ashoka contributed to the idea that some are real social entrepreneurs and some are not. Doing this, it shaped the field of social entrepreneurship and positioned itself as a major reference. Ashoka defined, promoted and used five criteria which are the following10: A new idea : The idea of the entrepreneur is evaluated and compared to former and contemporary similar ideas. It must be innovative to be accepted. There we find the field equivalent of the distinction Martin and Osberg made between the social entrepreneur and the social activist, as the latter is not implementing innovative solution. Creativity: This criteria is not redundant with the “new idea” one. Here, “creativity” means able to implement a new idea, to transform it into a reality, and having a “vision” of it. Entrepreneurial Quality: This criteria refers to the personality of the entrepreneurs: he must be extremely committed, totally absorbed by his mission, and have little interest in anything beyond their mission. Ashoka quotes as examples “the Andrew Carnegies, Henry Fords, and Steve Jobes of the citizen sector”. Social impact of the idea: The idea must be ambitious. It must have the potential to bring regional or nationwide change. Ethical Fiber: This criteria is summarized by Ashoka as: “Can we trust this person absolutely?” The combination of the “entrepreneurial quality” and the “ethical fiber” criteria makes that most of the selected entrepreneurs are those who created non-profit organizations. The fact that the entrepreneur created a non-profit is the best guarantee of the fact that he has little 9

Yunus, M. (2010) Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs PublicAffairs 10

The criteria can be found on Ashoka’s website http://www.ashoka.org/support/criteria Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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interest in anything (i.e. profit) beyond their mission. Ashoka goes against Martin and Obserg definition for whom profit doesn’t matter.

Should we Consider the Bottom of the Pyramid Theory? But some go even further and think that social entrepreneurship is a for profit venture solving a local problem. Green technologies, micro-finance, business at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and fair trade are all profitable businesses and should be considered as social entrepreneurship – they say. The main reference of the for-profit field is the Chicago based Indian economist Prahalad and his book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits 11 in which Prahalad advocates development through a market based approach. Prahalad is Indian but lived, worked and published in the United States. He contributed to the creation of “BoP learning lab” in the American universities between 2004 and 2007 12. His bottom of the pyramid theory is a major reference in development theories. They were introduced as an alternative of traditional development aid advocated by the World Bank and Jeffrey Sachs. He is also broadly quoted by the social entrepreneurs who believe that profit driven venture are more efficient than non-profit organizations. Prahalad himself nourishes the confusion. In his book he quotes several examples, putting side by side for-profit companies (like the ICICI bank, who started a BoP strategy in 1997 to bring banking in the Indian rural zones) and non-profit organizations (like the Aravind Eye Care Hospital13 and Jaipur Foot14, which are both considered as outstanding examples of nonprofit social entrepreneurship). In this, he is consistent with the original definition of social entrepreneurship, which comprehends both for-profit and non-profit organizations, but he is 11

Prahalad C.K. (2004) The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits. Wharton School Publishing 12 Gerard, Lorraine, (2008) « Réconcilier profits et développement, La BoP, une nouvelle normativité pour lutter contre la pauvreté? » Mémoire Majeure Alternative Management – HEC Paris available for download at http://appli7.hec.fr/amo/fiche_detail.php?num=65 13 Founded in 1976 by Dr. G. Venkataswamy with the mission to eliminate needless blindness, Aravind is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world. He reengineered the tasks of an eye operation and adapted its price to the revenues of his clients, creating an efficient and self-sustaining system. From April 2009 to March 2010, including the work done in the Managed Eye Hospitals, over two million five hundred thousand patients were treated and over three hundred thousand surgeries were performed. See http://www.aravind.org 14 Jaipur Foot provides free artificial limbs and prosthesis to amputees and disabled in India and abroad. See http://www.jaipurfoot.org/ Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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not consistent with his project of promoting business (i.e. profit) at the basis of the pyramid. In fact, his book is designed to advocate the use of profit as a more effective way to development. The Times nominated Prahalad as the most influent economist in 2007, popularizing at a worldwide the ideas born at the university of Michigan – and the unclear distinction between social entrepreneurship and business at the bottom of the pyramid. This uncertainty over the inclusion of profit in the definition of social entrepreneurship and the consequent possible confusion between BoP and social entrepreneurship is interesting as it allows us to identify groups in the field of social entrepreneurship and therefore to map it.

Why definition matters? The aim of this paper is not to provide a definition of social entrepreneurship but to bring an understanding of what shapes networks of social entrepreneurs – including profit or not, matching to Ashoka’s criteria or not, corresponding to Martin and Roger’s definition or not. In fact, in this work, no definition of social entrepreneurship will be taken for granted. Conversely, the various definitions of social entrepreneurship will be considered as a part of our scope of study. The different definitions of social entrepreneurship are a shaping element of the network. A definition provides an origin and defines who is included in it and who is not. About the origin, one can remark that the many definitions of social entrepreneurship generally come from the United States. Even the criteria that Yunus (who is from Bangladesh) proposed were published in English, in the United States. Even the definition of the “bottom of the pyramid”, issued by the Indian born Prahalad, was issued and discussed at Chicago. The definition also creates a limit of the social entrepreneur field. Depending on which definition we take, we have to exclude entrepreneurs who are too profit driven, or entrepreneurs who are too “grant seekers”. Dees15 considers that their is a continuum between purely philanthropic and purely commercial ventures. This continuum can be represented as follows.

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Dees, J.G. (1998) “Entreprising non-profits” Harvard Business Review vol. 76 pp 55-67 Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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Networks of social entrepreneurs include non entrepreneurs This paper will consider for-profit, not-for-profit and non-profit entrepreneurs that call themselves “social entrepreneurs”. We distinguish between these three categories according to the following criteria. Non-profit are NGOs, operational foundations (as opposed to financing foundations), charities, humanitarian organizations. Not-for-profit are companies under section 25 or normal companies having a goal different than profit. In India, they are generally under section 25. According to section 25(1)(a) and (b) of the Indian Companies Act, 1956, a section-25 company can be established “‘for promoting commerce, art, science, religion, charity or any other useful object’, provided the profits, if any, or other income is applied for promoting only the objects of the company and no dividend is paid to its members.” The notfor-profit category also includes the hybrid organizations which have a double structure, forprofit and non-profit, the former financing the latter. Finally, we call for-profit classical companies that work to create profit. Moreover, in order to adequately map the related social networks, one has to consider more than simply social entrepreneurs. Some scholars, journalists and government workers are active members of the network when their work is related to social entrepreneurship. A


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network is not only people, we will also have a look at other elements that shape it, like publication, networking places, common goals, and events.

1.1.2 Network

We define a network as a number of individuals or organizations (also called nodes) that are connected to each other. The ways of connecting to each other are numerous: it can be blood relations, commercial exchange, common belief, friendship and many others. The ties between the nodes happen and maintain themselves thanks to common places where they can meet and exchange. A common place is what creates a link between two nodes. It can be a third node (individual, organization or group), a physical place (a gathering) or a virtual place. To understand and describe a social network one has to identify which are the common places that create links between its members: which persons, organizations, places, events and publications are connecting the nodes of the network to each other.

1.1.3 A Social Movement We define a social movement as “networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, group and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities.”16 The definition of social movement excludes similar concepts like groups, political parties, protest events and coalitions. We will raise the issue of defining the network of social entrepreneurs and related nodes (organizations, journalists, scholars...) as a social movement. To show that social entrepreneur constitute a social network corresponding to Diani's definition, we will establish that they follow three simple criteria: members (or nodes) of the network share common beliefs (1), common goals (2), interact (3), and meet regularly (4). Diani, Mario (1992) "The concept of social movement" The Sociological Review Volume 40, Issue 1 pages 125, February 1992 16


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More than a simple social movement, we assume that social entrepreneurs are a new social movement. A new social movement is characterized by the fact that there is no central organization, it builds itself independently from the State, and it doesn't work on a classconflict scheme but rather defines a new identity for its members. New social movements have been studied by Touraine, Kriesi and Offe, after Melucci proposed the concept and gave a few examples of it, like feminism and ecology 17. To be considered a new social movement, a network has to correspond to the four following criteria. •

A new social movement is organized in a non centralized and non hierarchical way. Members are autonomous and can invent their own way of acting. New social movements are therefore characterized by their creativity when it comes to social action. They use new forms of activism, like flash-mobs or sit-ins. The core of a new social movement is its goals. Once they are reached, the organization can dissolve, as it has no further reason to exist.

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Classical social movements used to make pressure on the State or the society to obtain something, generally a reduction of inequalities. New social movements focus on asserting their identity and their independence from the State. Social entrepreneurs, as they claim independent action by individuals rather than government action, as they prefer direct action to indirect action (pressure on the State), correspond to this second characteristic of new social movements.

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While classical social movements wanted to take the power, new social movements refuse to get entangled with the State. Rather than taking the power and using the means of the State and bureaucracy to reach their goals, they would rely on independent action by individuals.

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New social movements do not use the category of classes to define themselves. They are made of individuals of different origins and background that simply share the same will on a particular topic.

Melucci, A. (1982) L'invenzione del presente. Movimenti Sociali nella società complesse Bologna, Il Mulino

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1.2 India 1.2.1 Problems and Solutions

“The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity” is a motto for entrepreneurs. According to this definition, India is a land of tremendous opportunities. Here are a few facts and figures about India, taken from an article published in The Times of India : 18

On Education “The country has over 400 million children below fifteen years of age, bigger than the entire population of the US. Most of them enroll in school, but by class VIII about half of them drop out, and only about 38% make it to class X. Among tribal children, almost 80% drop out by class X. India also has the highest population of illiterate adults in the world---about 257 million people above 15 years, who are beyond school going age, cannot read or write.”

On Employment “Over 93% of India's labour force is employed in the informal sector, where wages are low and work conditions onerous. Employment has expanded in the organized sector by only 0.05% per year between 1994 and 2008. Women workers with independent incomes constitute only 15% of the labor force, a pointer to the immense waste of productive capacities. Only 3% of the people in the working age group have any kind of technical training, and they are unable to utilize technologies for setting up enterprises.”

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Times of India “TOI launches annual Social Impact awards” 26 Mar, 2011 0124hrs IST Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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On Agriculture and Environment “An estimated 60% of cultivated land suffers from soil erosion, water logging, and salinity, and about five-ten billion tonnes of topsoil is lost annually from soil erosion. Groundwater tables are falling fast. Some endangered species are in danger of extinction: just 1,400 tigers remain in the wild. More than half of the one hundred and thirty cities being monitored for air pollution are at critically polluted levels and small towns are emerging as pollution hotspots.” But these are only some of the numerous problems that India faces. According to the World Bank (2005 estimate) 41,6% of the Indian population live below the poverty line (US$ 1.25 a day)19. It means that more than four hundred million people live below the poverty line. What is more, this figure does not take into account the diversity of situation : tackling poverty issues in India means working in city slums, as well as in the deep countryside, with different population and different challenges. To understand the situation, one has to know that the situation is critical also regarding water, sanitation, health, nutrition, energy, human trafficking and more. National figures does not give a fair account of the situation for a country huge and diverse as a continent. India is also a land of huge inequalities between people and between States. As an example, in Orissa 7% of household have toilets, 1% have running water, and 70% don't have electricity.

See « New global poverty estimates – what it means for India », The World Bank, last update in 2011. http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,conten tMDK:21880725~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html 19


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1.2.2 Social Entrepreneurship in India, an Outstanding Dynamism

India is therefore one of the main testing grounds for social entrepreneurs. One can take again the example of the Ashoka Foundation, which has been extremely active in India. “India is home to Ashoka's first Fellow, elected in 1982. For the past twenty five years, India has served as a testing ground for most of Ashoka's international Fellowship building programs and other key initiatives. Today, there are over two hundred and fifty Fellows working throughout India making significant contributions to a wide range of field, from appropriate technology to gender equity, from health care delivery systems to income generation.”20 Combining huge problems, foreign help embodied by big foundations like Ashoka, Skoll, Schwab, and numerous home-grown entrepreneurs, India is a world leading example for social entrepreneurship. “India has some of the most advanced and innovative social entrepreneurs. We believe and already see that many of the models developed in India, for instance rainwater harvesting for schools pioneered by Barefoot College, are exported around the world. India is therefore a key country to look for leading social entrepreneurs.”21 Such a dynamism is possible because many Indians see the State as unable to assume its functions and conclude that individuals should take up the challenges of development. This situation acts as a call for many Indians and creates vocations of social workers and social entrepreneurs. The vacuum left by the State is therefore creating a motivation for social entrepreneurs: if they don't take action, nobody will. Ted Gurr proposed to explain why men rebel by what he called “relative deprivation” 22. Relative deprivation is the tension that results because of the discrepancy between what men expect and what they actually get. When an individual believes that he deserves a defined See http://www.ashoka.org/india Krishnan, Murali (October 31, 2006) "India has most innovative social entrepreneurs: Schwab" Hindustan Times 22 Gurr, Ted, (1971) Why Men Rebel Princeton, Princeton University Press 20

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value (a revenue, a status, an award, a situation...) but is actually refrained from receiving it – and gets less – he suffers from relative deprivation. The deprivation is relative: even if the individual gets something positive, he will feel deprivation if what he gets is inferior to what he expected. For instance, a promotion can generate relative deprivation if the individual promoted is thinking that he was deserving a better promotion – even if his new status is better than what he had before. To define which benefits are expected by individuals and generate relative deprivation, Gurr made a synthesis of former works on what humans need. He used the Maslow pyramid23 which organizes and ranks human needs.

Source: msc-technology.wikispaces.com Gurr combined with Maslow the work of Laswell and Kaplan on power and society 24 and the work of Runciman on social inequality25. He therefore takes into account the widest range of values that can trigger action when we are deprived of them. They include welfare, security, self-actualization, and so forth. Indian social entrepreneurs appear because people suffer from relative deprivation : Indian saw the promises of socialism, and then the promises of a strong capitalist growth, which gave them strong expectations, but neither brought an end to the problems26. Maslow, A.H (1943) "A Theory of Human Motivation" Psychological Review n°50 pp. 370-396 Laswell, H. Kaplan, A. (1950) Power and Society, A Framework For Political Inquiry New Haven, Yale University Press 25 Runciman, W.G. (1966) Relative Deprivation and Social Justice Berkeley. University of California Press 26 Relative deprivation can happen in three cases. The first is called "Decremental deprivation" and happens when value expections remain constant while capabilities fall. For instance, the deprivation of a population during an economic crisis. The jobs that people expect are the same while the jobs their can get are less good. The second is called "Aspirational Deprivation". It happens if capabilities remain the same and expectations grow. For instance descovering a better job than the one you do and conducting you to raise what you expect for yourself while your actual situation does not change. The third is called "Progressive deprivation" and happens when 23 24


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These remaining problems are also opportunities. One may construe the engagement of social entrepreneurs in India as a rational attitude driven by interest. According to Olson27, individuals engage because of a rational calculus28. In fact, the huge problems that India faces are opportunities in terms of economic profit, as well as for social status or personal satisfaction. Daniel Gaxie29 goes even further than Olson and highlights the fact that we should take into account the side benefits of social action. Taking part into a collective action can produce effective retribution to its members : jobs, learning, networking, and also the mental gratification that goes with the feeling to take part into a just fight.

capabilities and expectations rise, but capabilities either don't keep up or start to fall. For instance, a slowing of the economy in a fast growing country can provoke this kind of deprivation among the recently created middle class. The probability of a triggering of action depends of other variables : among them we can remark the intensity of deprivation felt, the hardness and diversity of ways to realize expectations. If the action is triggered, individuals have different level of action, depending on what is the expectation to realize. Gurr calls “value opportunities” these levels of action. According to the scale, value opportunities regard individuals, society or politics. 27 Olson (1965) The logic of collective action Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 28 Olson proposed a rational explanation of collective action, using rational thinking as the basic motivation of individuals. According to him, society can be divided in three kind of groups. The first kind are the priviledged groups. They are in a posture that allows them to gain more from a public good than it would cost them to provide. The second kind are the latent groups. Any member of this kind of group could stop his contribution to the public good without generating a sizable downgrading in its supply. The third kind are the intermediate groups. If any member of this kind of groups stops his contribution to public good it will downgrade it, or will generate an additional cost to be born by other contributors. Deriving from these definition, Olson formulates the following hypothesis: When there is a privileged group, the public good will always be provided. When there is an intermediate group, the public good may be provided. When there is only a latent group, the public good will not be provided except if there is coercion or specific incentives. And last but not least, small stakeholders will tend to ask big stakeholders to pay a larger share. According to Olson, the bigger the group the more difficult it becomes to provide public good. This coming from three reasons: organizational cost rise, group members have a decreasing share of the benefits, and it is less likely that individual will benefit from helping. Welcoming new members in a group depends on the type of public good it provides. These are of two kinds: exclusive and inclusive. The first are limited in supply, while the second are not. If the good is exclusive, new members are not welcome. According to Olson, individuals engage in collective action after a cost/benefit assessment. If the benefit they think they can get from action is superior to the cost of the action, then they will engage themselves. The costs of action can be time, money, risk...etc while the benefit of the action can be a better salary, better work condition, a more democratic society and so on. There is a tendency for individuals to try to benefit from collective action while contributing as less as possible to the costs. As a consequence, Olson does not understand collective action as disinterested or driven by the collective good. Each individual is calculating and the action can be taken only if the calculus is positive. 29 Gaxie, D. (1977) "Economie des partis et rétribution du militantisme" La Revue Française de Science Politique Vol. 27 n°1 p.128 Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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1.2.3 Socialter

I saw this outstanding dynamism of social entrepreneurship in India, as I travelled four months to meet social entrepreneurs and interview them30. The aim of that survey was to raise awareness about social entrepreneurship using social media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook) and to raise awareness about the impact of social media among social entrepreneurs. I didn't know at that time I would conduct the current research and therefore my interviews were not focused on mapping social entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, I noticed a few things that helped me to write this paper. First, I noticed that social entrepreneurs were divided on the question of profit. Some are quoting Prahalad and advocated the use of profit to increase the efficiency of their action, they are running companies. The best example of it is Intellecash/Intellecap, a for-profit company that works as a consultancy, an incubator and a fund provider directed to for-profit social entrepreneurs31. Intellecap also runs the magazine Beyond Profit and Microfinance Insight. They are based in a very urban environment, a fancy neighborhood of Mumbai. On the other hand some are referring to Gandhi and believe that social action should not be driven by profit but disinterested. For instance, Joe Madiath founded Gram Vikas, who is providing water and sanitation to rural Orissa32. The NGOs work thanks to international and national financial help. Last but not least, some are trying to combine the efficiency of profit and the ethics of being a non-profit. These social entrepreneurs generally create hybrid model (a company that charges a services to companies or rich people to fund its social action). The Aravind Hospital charges rich people for an eye operation, and that allows to fund free operations for poor people. But the most interesting thing is not that there are these three models (for-profit, not-forprofit, hybrid), but that they know each other. They debate with each other on the question of profit: the non-profit social entrepreneurs accuse their for-profit fellows to be profit-seekers. While the for-profit social entrepreneurs accuse their non-profit fellows to be grant-seekers. See the website http://socialter.fr See the article about Intellcash on Socialter http://socialter.fr/intellecash-beyond-profit/ 32 To read the article about Gram Vikas on Socialter go to http://socialter.fr/gram-vikas-rural-development/ 30 31


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More than just knowing each other, they interact with each other and attend the same networking events. Therefore, there are at least three competing spheres (for-profit, nonprofit, hybrid), but they are belonging to the same social network. The debate on profit is an internal debate inside the group of social entrepreneurs, it is not a debate between three separate group that would exclude each other. Another thing I noticed in India is that, even if Indians don't have the same definition of social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurs have the same role models: when asked where their inspiration comes from, they answer with the same names (like Mohammad Yunus) and they quote the same examples (like the Aravind Eye Care Hospital). For-profit and non-profit entrepreneurs have common references, the main one being Gandhi, which most of them would quote as their original inspiration.


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1.3 Origins of a Concept

1.3.1 Gandhi

Social Entrepreneur or Social Activist? Gandhi's influence goes far beyond India and is momentous as regards social entrepreneurship and social economy in Europe. He is not only the man who fought the British Empire with non-violent techniques. He is also a thinker of the economy. Gandhi read John Ruskin with great interest and proposed his own vision of development. He is, as well as Ruskin, one of the main references of the de-growth economists. But Gandhi was more a social activist than a social entrepreneur. According to Martin and Osberg definition, a social activist achieves his goal by convincing society and governments to change. He takes “indirect action” while a social entrepreneur would take direct action. “Why not call these people social entrepreneurs? It wouldn’t be a tragedy. But such people have long had a name and an exalted tradition: the tradition of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Vaclav Havel. They are social activists. Calling them something entirely new – i.e., social entrepreneurs – and thereby confusing the general public, who already know what a social activist is, would not be helpful to the cause of either social activists or social entrepreneurs.”33 But the fact is that, even if Gandhi is more famous for taking indirect action – for being a social activist – he also took direct action. He is therefore a major influence for contemporary social entrepreneurs. We will give three examples of direct action taken by Gandhi: the Champaran Ashram, the Tolstoy Farm, and the promotion of swaraj or independence through empowerment campaigns like the khadi campaign.

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Martin, Roger L. Osberg, Sally.(2007) “Social Entrepreneurship, The Case For A Definition”. Stanford Social Innovation Review Spring 2007 Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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Champaran's Ashram (1918-1919) In 1918 Gandhi decided to tackle the issue of Champaran farmers. Champaran is located in the State of Bihar, still nowadays one of the poorest in India. When Gandhi came up, farmers were forced to cultivate indigo, which is not necessary for their survival. The indigo was then sold at a very low price to English landlords. Gandhi came to organize a movement of civil disobedience to get higher prices of the indigo and more independence for the farmers. But he was so appalled by the education and sanitation in the villages of Champaran that he also impulsed the creation of schools and hospitals, and started hygiene classes. He added to his social activism (the civil disobedience campaign) social entrepreneurship (creating schools and hospitals...). After helping the farmers to reach an agreement with the landlords, Gandhi had no reason to stay in Champaran. He was called for other actions and could not take further his actions of village development. In his autobiography, he writes how sad he was of that34. Today, education and sanitation is still very bad in numerous Indian villages. Some social entrepreneurs therefore literally took up the challenge set by Gandhi: provide sanitation and hygiene education to villagers. The NGO Gram Vikas is working on this in Orissa. His founder likes to quote regularly Gandhi saying that “sanitation is more important than independence for India”35.

Tolstoy farm (1910)

In 1910, Gandhi founded a farm in South Africa. He had read The Kingdom of God is Within You by Tolstoy in 189436, and had used his time in jail in 1909 to read more from the Russian writer. Gandhi knew and admired him, and started to correspond with him just before his death. But it is Kallenbach, a friend of Gandhi and co-founder of the farm, who chose the name. In fact, the farm was a repetition of the Phoenix settlement Gandhi created a few years before, near Durban, after reading Unto the last by John Ruskin. He was so impressed by this Gandhi, An Autobiography, My Experiments with Truth Interview of Joe Madiath by Alban Leveau-Vallier, published the 2/06/2010 on socialter.fr http://socialter.fr/entrepreneurship-in-india-6-be-passionate/ 36 Surendra Bhana, Surendra, The Tolstoy Farm: Gandhi's Experiment in « Cooperative Commonwealth » Published in South African Historical Journal,No. 7, November 1975 34 35

http://www.tolstoyfarm.com/the_past.htm Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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reading that he traduced the book in Gujarati, which was published in 1908 under the title Sarvodaya (which means « good for everybody »). The Phoenix settlement and the Tolstoy farm were thought to implement the ideal life according to Gandhi. This life must be simple and close to nature. The aim is educational: people living in the farm must become self-reliant (Gandhi also read Thoreau in 1909 in jail). Inhabitants of the settlements learn to make their clothes, their shoes, their food. Simplicity of life and proximity of nature is also a way to get closer to truth (satya). This is the implementation of the ideas of Ruskin, but also of Gandhi's hindu education. In the Tolstoy farm, it was forbidden to kill animals, even venomous snakes, or to harm the nature. Those settlements were a model of ecology. Their foundation was the effect of direct action by Gandhi, and they inspired a lot of social entrepreneurs, especially those who work in rural areas. The NGO Gram Vikas for instance, instead of having its offices in a city, chose to create a “campus” - which could be interpreted as the contemporary word for settlement – in the Orissan countryside. On

the campus, there are the offices, but also a vegetarian

community kitchen, a forest, and houses for workers and guests.

Self-reliance and Swaraj The word swaraj means independence. This concept was formed during the fight against the English domination. But, according to Gandhi, swaraj means much more than political independence. It also includes individual and spiritual independence. Swaraj for an individual means someone whose thinking is free from exterior domination. A spirituality with swaraj is a personal spirituality who is free from extremisms. Gandhi tried to embody this swaraj in every field of his life. He had a strong personal spirituality and explored Hinduism as well as other religions. For him, the most important was not the religion but the personal spirituality. He applied the concept of swaraj in the economic field. He was opposed to Nehru on the development of India because of his idea of swaraj. Nehru wanted to industrialize India and to control the development by using planning, thus following the example of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On the other hand, Gandhi advocated a development of villages. Such a development requires to create independent villages that have human size. The development recommended by Gandhi recommends independent villages (from the State) and an independent India (from domination by other nation). It doesn't mean that villages Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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should not exchange, and that India should not trade with other nations. It simply means that these exchanges are not vital and that the villages and India are not dependent of an external power for their survival. Gandhi's vision of development lost the fight. It is Nehru who implemented his ideas and industrialized India at a large scale. But today, Gandhi's ideas are coming back as social entrepreneurship grows. Interestingly enough, the concept of swaraj is close to social entrepreneurship definition. If we take our initial definition, by Martin and Osberg, social entrepreneurs starts with “identifying a stable but inherently unjust equilibrium that causes the exclusion, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity that lacks the financial means or political clout to achieve any transformative benefit on its own.”37 The fact that the target population is characterized with a “lack” of means to achieve any “transformative benefit on its own” corresponds to a lack of swaraj: the target population is dependent on exterior help to improve its condition. The goal of the social entrepreneur is to create therefore a “new equilibrium” in which the target population is enabled to achieve transformative benefit on its own. In other words, the social entrepreneur brings independence, or swaraj, to the target population. That is why social entrepreneurship ideology breaks with a long period of problem solving through external help. The aim is now to free the populations from the necessities of external help. Problems should not be solved by giving food or money. They should be solved by providing education and by catalyzing the action of target populations. Target populations should be educated and helped to solve themselves their problems. This idea is at the basis of microcredit : provide financial education and access to credit and facilitate the emergence of entrepreneurs – that is people who tackle the issues of their environment. This idea is also ubiquitous in the latino-american “negocios inclusivos” (inclusive business): every program should include “capacitacion” (increasing capabilities). Direct help generates dependence. When it is possible, it is better to provide to the people the means to solve their problems by themselves. Gandhi applied this idea during the khadi campaign. The aim was to end the necessity for the Indians to buy English textile, and the necessity for the poor to buy clothes. For this, he had to create for the poor – more broadly for every Indian - the possibility to spin and weave themselves. He managed to find people who 37

Martin, Roger L. Osberg, Sally.(2007) “Social Entrepreneurship, The Case For A Definition”. Stanford Social Innovation Review Spring 2007 Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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knew how to make spinning and weaving machines and to use them. He organized the teaching of this knowledge for everybody who wanted to learn it. Therefore he created for everyone who wanted it the possibility to become independent from English textile and from cloth-sellers. The will to promote independence – swaraj – was present in every aspect of Gandhi's life and teaching. When he decided to clean himself his toilets, he did it to free himself from the dependence to employ someone to do it (even if it was also a symbolical decision regarding his refusal of the dalit exclusion). The way he understood education (nai talim) corresponds also to the concept of swaraj : education is enabling men to be independent in every sphere (economy, spirituality...). A good education according to Gandhi should include teaching of weaving and spinning, of agriculture, as well as a spiritual education (to ensure a spiritual independence and prevent obscurantism). This promotion of swaraj is not a promotion of isolation : Gandhi does not want people to live alone, he wants them to live free. Independence is not contradictory with exchange. He was himself very independent but willing to exchange. He had an active correspondence and travelled a lot to meet people. His interest for other religions was so strong that, when in London, his anglican interlocutors thought they were converting him. According to Gandhi, independence – swaraj – should be attained by individuals, but also by villages. Every village should produce its own energy and rely on its own activity. That is why social entrepreneurs working in rural areas define Gandhi as their main inspiration. Their goal is to ensure the autonomy of the villages according to the principles of Gandhi. Gyanesh Pandey for instance, is working to provide energetic independence to villages. Three quarters of Indians live in the countryside, in more or less five hundred thousand villages. Only three hundred ten thousand of these five hundred thousand villages are officially electrified he says. Even those who are officially electrified can't really rely on a constant and good electricity. The power goes off regularly and makes it impossible to achieve works that demand electricity. Therefore micro-entrepreneurs have to buy a generator, which is expensive. What is more, this electricity comes from big dams that have a tremendous ecological and human impact when they are created. Gyanesh Pandey is from Bihar, one of the poorest States in India. He created Husk Power System, which creates micro plants that use rice husk to generate electricity. This local production allows the villages to Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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solve their electricity problem and to free them from the dependence to the inefficient national network. Another example of

Gandhian village development is provided by Professor

Swaminathan, the father of the “Green Revolution” in India. The idea is to increase connectivity in the villages to allow them to be more independent. Connected computers put in the centre of the village allows inhabitants to get information on the best price to sell their crop and to buy material. It also provides them with a place to exchange best practices, like cultivating mushrooms under the roof of their huts. The idea is therefore to break the dependence of villagers towards local buyers and sellers thanks to an access to a better information. Even if he was more a social activist than a social entrepreneur, Gandhi provided contemporary social entrepreneurs with examples and concepts and is today a major reference. But Gandhi, even if he had the strongest Indian roots, got some of his inspiration from his studies in London and his readings, in particular his readings of John Ruskin. One can say therefore that the western influence on social entrepreneurship in India was there right from the beginning.

1.3.2 The Western Influence

Social entrepreneurship as a practice always existed. There have always been problems and problem solvers. But social entrepreneurship as a concept was theorized only in the nineteen nineties, in the Unites States of America. Even if the scholars that worked on it were not all Americans, it is a fact that the concept was born there and exported from there to the rest of the world. The concept of social entrepreneurship as formalized by the American universities was exported by intellectuals but also by pragmatic workers in the development field. The already quoted Ashoka foundation, followed by many others foundations and funds (Acumen, Skoll, Schwab) poured money and human resources in emerging countries, focusing on what was corresponding to their concept of social entrepreneurship and therefore favoring it. If today there are so many social entrepreneurs in India, it is also because of this ecosystem created by Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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the foundations. More and more business students are attracted to social entrepreneurship because they know that they can find funding and support from this ecosystem. Another key factor for introducing the concept of social entrepreneurship in India is the diaspora. The cultural impact of the diaspora have been momentous in shaping new ideas of development. The migratory fluxes between India and Canada, the United Kingdom and the the USA, have contributed to import new ideas. Beyond remittances, diaspora Indians provided their home countries with new ideas and conception of the role of the State regarding development. The growth of telecommunication allowed ideas to circulate more easily between all parts of the world. The Internet provided a unique space for discussing for Indians all over the world. Some even talk about a ‘novel Internet Hindutva’.38 What is more, the “brain drain” became a “brain circulation”39, as more and more Indians came back after receiving education and working in the West. They have been attracted by the new “tech cities” – Bangalore and Hyderabad – that could provide them living standards at least as good as in the West. It has become commonplace for Indian engineers to go ‘‘onsite’’ to a USA firm for training, support or product development for a few months or a year40. Added to this, it is increasingly normal for graduates from prestigious Indian universities to go abroad for a short period of time and return to India with an MBA and some experience. The model of "the IITian 41 turned NRI" is shifting towards the example of the India based engineer with global experience42. Therefore, these people going back and forth to India have created a global elite exchanging ideas and capital and feeling “Indians” even if they don't live in India. The standard profile of such individuals is a high-tech engineer who graduated from IIT and went to the USA to complete an MBA and work for a few years before returning to India. These flows of capital, ideas and people became momentous for India as diasporic Indians have felt 38

Raghuram, Sahoo, Maharaj and Sangha, (2008) Tracing an Indian Diaspora: Contexts, Memories, Representations, Sage Publications, New-Delhi, 480 pp ISBN 987-81-7829-833-7 39 Saxenian, Anna Lee (2000) ‘‘Back to India: Indian Software Engineers are Returning with Enthusiasm and Entrepreneurial Know-How.’’ Wall Street Journal: Technology Journal Asia 24 January 2000 Bhttp://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id 0SB948660121193873632.djm# 40 Aneesh, A. Virtual Migration: The Programming of Globalization. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006 41 The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) provide the most prestigious education in the engineering field in India 42 Kaul, Sumeet (2005) ‘‘More IITians Pass Up US Degrees for High-Paying Jobs Here.’’ The Hindu Business Line 15 May 2005. Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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concerned with the development of their home country and as the Government understood that it could be used. The opening of the Indian economy that started in 1991 made it easier to invest from abroad. The Government of India understood late the economic potential of twenty millions Indians living abroad. Flows of people, ideas and capital to India were have been helped and favored only after 2000. On the other hand, wealthy diaspora Indians have shown concern in the future of their birthplace and have been keen to invest in the development of their homeplace as a way to compensate for being far from it. The Indian diaspora, or what could be called “the Global Indians” are therefore coping with a paradoxical situation: they work at a global scale, they use management methods from the West, they can live anywhere in the world, but at the same time they feel very connected to their birthplace and concerned by its future43. In the following paper we will focus on the role played by these “global Indians” on exporting social entrepreneurship from the USA to India. We will consider only the affluent global Indians : the middle-class or upper-class Indians that generally work in hightechnologies in the US, Canada or in Europe. There are also a huge number of these “global Indians” that are less affluent and work as construction engineers or simple workers all around the world, especially in Africa. We will not consider them because of their influence regarding social entrepreneurship in India.

See Appendix 1 for more details on the Global Indians and the impact of the diaspora on development policies in India. 43


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Part 2. Theory 2.1 Western Influence 2.1.1 Question: How and to what Extent the West influenced India on social entrepreneurship?

To answer this question we need to find an indicator that would allow to assess the influence of the West on India regarding the growth of social entrepreneurship. This influence has to be assessed as regards the concept of social entrepreneurship, but also the techniques used, and the goals assigned. Here the problem is : how a concept can travel from a continent to another. Which channels were used to import it to India? If it travelled through people, who are they? What is their background and their class? Moreover, if the concept arrived from abroad, why was it accepted? What is more, to be adopted by local actors, the concept must make sense for them, it must be "traduced" in their own language and system of understanding.

2.2.2 Hypothesis The Western Influence was Momentous and Used Two Main Channels : the Global Indians and the Western Foundations

We make the hypothesis that the Western influence has been momentous in the current successes of social entrepreneurship in India. More specifically, we will assume that this western influence took the channel of the Indian diaspora that we already described, especially tech engineers and business students who came back to India to work in the "India silicon valley" (Hyderabad and Bangalore), also called the “silicon plateau” as Bangalore is on a plateau.


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We make the hypothesis that the concept travelled to India. It has been taken by Indian entrepreneurs that were labelled or called themselves social entrepreneurs, thus adapting a western concept to an Indian concept and “traducing” it. We assume that several channel were used by the concept to migrate to India : specialized institutions took as a mission to raise awareness about it in India (like Ashoka, Schwab, Skoll...). What is more, more and more middle class Indians have been studying, living or traveling in the USA, Canada and United Kingdom, learning there about new ideas and bringing them back to their home country.


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2.2 A Cartography 2.2.1 Hypothesis : Organization of the Movement

In spite of conflicts, there are common places and prerequisites. We call “prerequisites” the nodes that fulfill a “structural hole”44. A structural hole is a lack of connection between two nodes. A prerequisite is in a dominating posture because it controls the communication between the two non-connected nodes. We will have to identify which are the prerequisite nodes in the social entrepreneurs networks. We will also have to verify if there are cliques within Indian social entrepreneurs. A clique is a closed social group in which every node has direct relations with every other node. According to Warner45, cliques are informal groups in which there is a feeling of membership, intimacy, and common norms. Davis46 defines three levels in a clique: a core, a first circle in which individuals are not part of the group but take part in some events, and a second circle, similar to the first, in which individuals take part in less events.

2.2.2 Hypothesis : Strong Ties and Weak Ties

Connections between nodes in a network are not all equivalent. Granovetter 47 defines four criteria that allows to assess the strength of a connection: time (when the relations started and time spent together since), emotional intensity, intimacy and reciprocal services. Degenne and Forsé add to this a fifth criteria, called the "multiplexity" of a a relation : the more diverse is the exchange, the bigger the multiplexity. Connexions within a clique a generally strong while they are generally weak outside. Granovetter pinpoints the underestimated role of weak ties: they allow to share information from clique to clique.

Burt. R. (1992) Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge. Harvad University Press Warner W.L. And P.S. Lunt (1941) The Social Life of a Modern Community New Haven, Yale University Press 46 Davis A., B. B. Gardner, and M.R. Gardner (1941) Deep South Chicago, University of Chicago Press 47 Granovetter M.S (1973) "The Strenght of Weak Ties". American Journal of Sociology, vol 78, n°6, pp. 13601380 44 45


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Innovation needs weak ties to happen. If a network is to closely connected, the same information is possessed by the different nodes and there is a relatively smaller creativity48. Weak ties are necessary to nourish cliques with information from outside and help them to innovate.

2.2.3 Hypothesis : CATNET

The concept of CATNET was created by Charles Tilly to describe how a group can mobilize itself49. CATNET is the combination of CATness and NETness. CATness comes from CATegorie and represents the objective common points that individuals share in the group: it can be their age, their sex, their race and so on. NETness stands for connections that are not related to objective categories. NETness depends on the will of individuals to be connected. Groups characterized by a strong NETness exist because people chose to form the group. A group that combines CATness and NETness is a group with a strong CATNET and is a group with a strong core that can easily enter into a mobilization. We will have to show how a strong CATNET allows the network to exist.

Rogers, E.M, and Shoemaker F. (1971) Communication of Innovation, A Cross-Cultural Approach New York, The Free Press 49 Tilly, C (1976) From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, Massachussetts, Addison-Wesley. 48


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2.3 Conflicts 2.3.1 Question : Which Conflicts Affect the Network?

We will identify which conflicts divide the social entrepreneurs and how this division shapes their group. Georg Simmel was the first to pinpoint how conflicts can help us to understand how a group is structured50. According to him, every social structure is characterized by an equilibrium between conflict and cooperation. Conflict in itself is simply an alternate way for members of a group to interact. Conflict allows individuals to define a position for themselves in a group. It creates subgroups that are the architecture of a group.

2.3.2 Hypothesis : A Conflict between "Gandhian" and "Global" Entrepreneurs

We will focus on one conflict: the conflict over definition of social entrepreneurship that we already described and in particular the conflict over profit. We will study if the debate between those who advocate the use of profit and those who refuse it can help us to understand the network. We can use Gees diagram to class organizations according to the definition of social entrepreneurship they reinvindicate.

Definition Rule Simmel, G., K.H. Wolff (1950) The sociology of Georg Simmel, New York, Free Press of Glencoe

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Legal structure Financed by We will ignore the question of “what is the right definition of social entrepreneurship?” but we will use the definition which is used by the people studied to locate them on the above graph. What is more, we will use the concept of "ideal-type"51 created by Weber52 to embody the various parties, which doesn't mean that there are social entrepreneurs exactly corresponding to the typical entrepreneurs that we will build. The “ideal-types” have a methodological purpose to understand the characteristics of our object. We define two ideal-types of social entrepreneurs corresponding to each extremity of the graph. We define the “Gandhian social entrepreneur” ideal-type according to the following criteria : •

working in a rural environment

•

born and raised in India

•

advocating non-profit

•

strongly influenced by Gandhi

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“Sociology seeks to formulate type concepts and generalized uniformities of empirical process. ... As in the case of every generalizing science, the abstract character of the concepts of sociology is responsible for the fact that, compared with actual historical reality, they are relatively lacking in fullness of concrete content. To compensate for this disadvantage, sociological analysis can offer a greater precision of concepts. ... In all cases, rational or irrational, sociological analysis both abstracts from reality and at the same time helps us to understand it, in that it shows with what degree of approximation a concrete historical phenomenon can be subsumed under one or more of these concepts. For example, the same historical phenomenon may be in one aspect feudal, in another patrimonial, in another bureaucratic, and in still another charismatic. In order to give a precise meaning to these terms, it is necessary for the sociologist to formulate pure ideal types of the corresponding forms of action which in each case involve the highest possible degree of logical integration ... But precisely because this is true, it is probably seldom if ever [the case] that a real phenomenon can be found which corresponds exactly to one of these ideally constructed pure types. The case is similar to a physical reaction which has been calculated on the assumption of an absolute vacuum. ... When reference is made to 'typical' cases, the term should always be understood, unless otherwise stated, as meaning ideal types, which may in turn be rational or irrational ... but in any case are always constructed with a view to adequacy on the level of meaning.” 52 Weber, Max (1922) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Sociology. (Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie.) Guenter Roth and Claus Wittich, editors/translators. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978: 19-22. Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

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On the opposite, we define the “global Indian turned social entrepreneur” with the following criteria : •

spent some time abroad (studying or working), generally in the Silicon Valley

•

studied engineering and/or business

•

has strong connections with the tech-cities in India (Bangalore and Hyderabad)

•

is affluent

•

is applying the BoP theory and a market based approach to development

This ideal-type could be called “the affluent global Indian turned social entrepreneur”. He was generally born in the fifties/sixties, raised in India, studied business and/or tech, first in India (Bangalore or Hyderabad), then in the USA, he made money, living between Bangalore and the Silicon Valley, went through a conversion between 2004 and 2006 and turned to social entrepreneurship as defined by Prahalad.


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Part 3. Methodology 3.1 Exploration

The first phase of my research consisted in a basic exploration on what could be found on the internet about social entrepreneurs in India and their organization. I found many specialized websites. Like the website of the National Social Entrepreneurship Forum53, Think Change India54, or Eksochh55. They provide a general view of social entrepreneurship in India and many portraits of specific social entrepreneurs. It helps to get a good idea of what is going on, in details and as a overall view. Websites of organizations related to social entrepreneurship have been quite informative. Ashoka India provides figures on social entrepreneurship in India, as well as portraits and details on each of its “fellows”56. Unltd India57 also provides details on their action, their investments and about social entrepreneurs related to them. To complete my first hand readings, I went to more informative and “journalistic” websites. Some are specialized on social entrepreneurship, like Beyond Profit58, some are not specialized but provide a lot of information on the topic, like YourStory59, and some are simply blogs that evoke social entrepreneurship in India, like Arandi60. To have an idea of the political and economical context, I used institutional publication, like the one provide by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)61. The World Bank also provides data in an “India at a glance” page62. The CIA gives a good overview of main facts and figures in its “World Factbook”63.

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http://nsef-india.org/ http://www.thinkchangeindia.org/ 55 http://www.eksochh.com/ 56 http://india.ashoka.org/ 57 http://www.unltdindia.org/ 58 http://beyondprofitmag.com/ 59 http://www.yourstory.in/ 60 http://www.arandi.org/ 61 http://www.oecd.org/inde 62 http://devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/ind_aag.pdf 63 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html 54


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To go beyond the figures and get a better understanding of local issues, I took to read local newspaper. Some are in English and provide useful information, like The Indian Express64 or the Hindustan Times65. It provides a good pictures of some facts that one has to take into account but would not appear in academic papers or specialized blogs, like the rampant corruption, the issues which are debated on the political arena, the events that matters for Indians and so on. The exploratory phase was not only confined to first hand readings. After reading again the notes and articles I had written when I was meeting social entrepreneurs 66 I contacted back some well connected Indians I had met. Social entrepreneurs and journalists answered my precise questions67. I didn't formalize the process of asking question though, and only had informal exchange that provided me further insights on social entrepreneurs in India. Some of these people became my friends and particularly helped me in this phase, like Vallabh Rao, an editor at Yourstory.in and working for Ashoka India, Amrit Pal, working at Eksochh and organizer of the Grassroot event, and Cyril Rollinde, entrepreneur and blogger. To widen the range of my interlocutors, I asked similar precises questions on the Question&Answer forum Quora68 on which any individual can ask or answer to questions. The answers are generally provided by specialists who are keen on interacting about their speciality.

http://www.indianexpress.com/ http://www.hindustantimes.com/ 66 Notes, articles and interviews are available at http://socialter.fr 67 Questions such as: “Which are the main events regarding social entrepreneurship?” or “Which are the social entrepreneurs that acted as role model for you?” 68 http://www.quora.com 64 65


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3.2 Readings

To help me to conduct my research and write this paper, I read similar papers made by fellow students. The way they built their papers, the references they used and their methodology have been very helpful. I have to quote first Domitille Harb's paper about the Social Entrepreneurs Movement in France69 and Chiarelli's on “Generation Precaire”, an activist movement to defend interns rights70. Then I went on with theorical reading. My object being a social network and me being a native French speaker, I used the very helpful work by Degenne and Forsé71 on social network, as well as the book by Neveu, Sociologie des réseaux sociaux72. They both provide a good overview of the available theoretical tools to analyze social networks and a good introduction to canonic authors on collective action (like Gurr, Olson and so forth). I followed with research papers directly or indirectly related to the topic of social entrepreneurs in India. I especially found a lot of papers about the Indian diaspora and its role in development policies. In fact, papers about social entrepreneurship in India are generally written by Indians living abroad (mainly in the United States).

69

Harb, D. (2010) "Le mouvement des entrepreneurs sociaux, une nouvelle initiative de promotion et de développement de l'entrepreneuriat social en France". Mémoire de master Alternative Management. HEC available for download at http://appli7.hec.fr/amo/fiche_detail.php?num=134 70

Chiarelli, P. A. (2006) "Génération précaire ou comment un mouvement de contestation se crée et se pérennise" Mémoire de master Alternative Management HEC available for download at http://appli7.hec.fr/amo/upload/AMO_Generation_Precaire.pdf? PHPSESSID=7f964de8a1feda4f7ec25267811d9611 71 Degenne, A. And Forsé, M. (1994) Les réseaux sociaux Paris. Armand Colin 72 Neveu, E. (2002) Sociologie des mouvements sociaux Paris 3e édition. La Découverte Network of Social Entrepreneurs in India” – June 2011

38

3.3 Event analysis 3.2.1 Events as a Object of Research

I started with the question : what could help us to identify which are the main organizations and people related to social entrepreneurship? The idea was to study them afterwards to answer to the questions and verify or not the hypothesis. I came with the idea of studying the speakers of events related to social entrepreneurship in India. In the recent years, many events have been created all around India to promote social entrepreneurship and help social entrepreneurs to network and interact. My hypothesis is that the people who are invited to talk at events can be considered as the most important in the group. They are role models. They might not be a fair representation of every social entrepreneur, but at least they can stand for what social entrepreneurs want to see, to hear, and to show.

3.2.2 Data Collection

After taking that decision I established a list of main events about social entrepreneurship in India. I came up with a list of the nine main events, which are the following: Grassroots, Sankalp, Social Mashup, Khemka, Sociopreneurship, The India Economic Forum, Confluence, Unconvention, National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship. Along with the name of the events, I collected some data that could be interesting, like their location, number of attendants, number of speaker, year of creation, characteristics (more or less profit-oriented), the attendance of investor, the use of BoP related language and so forth. After that, I focused on speakers and established, for each event, a list of speakers and their characteristics. The characteristics I searched for each speaker were the following: their job (working in a non-profit, journalists, scholars, investors, working in a company and so on), their sex, if they studied abroad, if they studied management, if they studied engineering, and


39

their “cross-attendance” (if they attended to other events). When it was available, I added their environment of work (rural or urban), their age, their awards, the date of their engagement in social entrepreneurship and their former work. Thus, I created a small database of one hundred and twenty entries (social entrepreneurs, specialized scholars and journalists, and investors), with six to twelve characteristics for each entry of the database. This research allowed to me to class the events : after analyzing the biographies of speakers it was easy to tell which event was more focused on profit ventures and which event was for non-profit organizations. It allowed me also to class the speakers and identify a bunch of “big men”. Sahlins defines the big men in Melanesia and Polynesia as the men who have a high influence in a tribe, even if they don't possess formal power73. I called these big men, “guru”, which in hindi means the one who has more experience and wisdom than the others. A guru is part of one's identity in India, if we take “guru” in its simple definition, which is an adviser, a role model, a wise man74. I identified these gurus as the speakers who give a speech in most events. I assumed that the people who were invited to speak in most events might be those who have more legitimacy, more experience and more charisma. My aim has been to identify these gurus and then to class them by rank of popularity and by thinking (for-profit or non-profit).

3.2.3 Mapping Networks of Social Entrepreneurs Last but not least, the main goal of this research has been to provide the reader with an overview of social entrepreneurs as a network in India. It means that we identified who are the main social entrepreneurs and which are the common places (events, places, publications, ideas...) that connect them in order to build a synthetic map of social entrepreneurship networks in India. In order to this I considered two main aspect which constitute each axis of the final cartography : the first is the profit-orientation of the social entrepreneurs and the events they attend; the second is their “global indianity” (see definition later). I found this two

Sahlins, Marshall (1963). "Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia". In Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5/285-303. 74 See the chapter "Chacun cherche son gourou" in Sorman, G. (2000) Le génie de l'Inde Fayard 73


40

characteristics as being the main points of differentiation between entrepreneurs and therefore used it to create the axes of the map.


41

Part 4. Results 4.1 Events Regarding Social Entrepreneurship in India 4.1.1

Event Analysis : Location, an Indian Silicon

Valley?

The first figure we looked at was the location of the events. The following map displays the geographical location of main events about social entrepreneurship in India (2010), excluding Grassroots and the Social Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (an event organized by Unltd India in Mumbai75) because of their relative little size and importance.

To learn more about this event go to http://socialentrepreneurbootcamp.org/

75


42

Most of the events take place in big capital cities. Only the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship takes place in a rural zone (Jharkhand) but it is in the biggest city in the area (Jamshedpur). Half of the events are in Indian high-tech capitals, Hyderabad and Bangalore. We therefore have a first element to validate our hypothesis on the western influence on Indian social entrepreneurship: half of the events on social entrepreneurship happen in hightech cities. When the focus is more political the event generally takes place in Delhi – like the Economic Forum. When the focus of the event is on rural development it take place in alternative places (Chennai, Jamshedpur...). The location is therefore not chosen by chance and we can interpret the fact that half of the event take place in Bangalore and Hyderabad because of their high-tech start-ups ecosystem.

4.1.2 Event Analysis : Reading the Websites. Forprofit or Non-profit?

After considering their location, we looked at the websites of events. We extracted a few data from it and used it to classify the event to establish the premises of a cartography. The following table displays data extracted from the events websites : organizer, venue, year of creation, number of speakers, number of attendants, inclusion of investors, quotation of the bottom of the pyramid theory (and/or Prahalahad), and the use of a “silicon valley language” (like “business plan”, “venture capitalist”, “funding”, “start-up spirit”…etc.) Creat Name Unconvention National

By

Venue

Villgro

Chennai

Entrepreneurship Sankalp

ers 2009

Attendan ce

34

Invest ors

300

Quoting BOP

S i l i c o n Va l l e y language

yes

"Business plan competition" "Sustainable

Conference on Social

ed

Speak

Jamshed XLRI Jamshedpur Intellecap

Models

pur

Underserved

(Jharkand) Mumbai

2009 2009

23 400+

no yes

Markets"

for "Options for Funding & Investments" "[Sankalp] enabled capital

social

flow to these new investible

enterprises,

sectors"

150+ impact investors and


43

150+ sector stakeholders "start-up exhibition", worshops on business plans,

Confluence India Economic Forum

NSEF

Bangalore

2010

Delhi

2005

20

yes

pitching, team management

Schwab Foundation

"When the late

C.K.

Prahalad wrote the great story on wealth lying at

Sociopreneurshi p Khemka

the bottom of the Yourstory Khemka

Bangalore

2010

18

yes

Foundation

Hyderabad Hyderab

2009

35

yes

pyramid…"

"you're in for a dynamic,

ad (@India

inspiring, affordable and fun two

School of

Social Mashup

Unltd India

Business)

"opportunities of funding, branding, networking"

days that truly captures the spirit 2010

17

yes

of a start-up!" "[…]selling detergent to a BoP consumer leads to better

By facilitating tools like

sanitation, better mentorship, venture capital and

Grassroots: Social Profit

CEL,

BITS-

health

NSEF, NEN, P ilan i G o a Mentoredge

Blue when

campus

a n d networking, maverick change-

productivity to makers can be coagulated into a 2011

1000

no

the buyer "

movement.

Colored when

business school tech city

Organizers We call “professional networkers” people and institution whose work is to organize events, to support social entrepreneurs and to connect them to other entrepreneurs and investors. Here, professional networkers are people working for Ashoka, Unltd India, Schwab and Skoll Foundation, and people organizing events (Sankalp, Villgro and so on). As their work implies a lot of networking, and as they organize themselves events, they are generally invited to a lot


44

of events. For instance, the head for Ashoka India, Solomon Prakash, is invited to nearly all the events we studied. These people have therefore a strong impact on the image of social entrepreneurship as well as on the ideas that are shared among social entrepreneurs: they are present – and speak – at nearly every events.

Venue We already discussed the fact that half of the events take place in high-tech cities (Hyderabad and Bangalore). It is also interesting to take into account the venue of the event. Two of them are hosted by a business school (India School of Business at Hyderabad and XLRI Jamshedpur), which comes as a further element to validate our hypothesis on western influence on social entrepreneurship: a part of social entrepreneurs in India is linked to western style business schools. The Xavier Labour Relation Institute is located in Jamshedpur, a city famous for depending – and being almost run – by Tata Steel. XLRI is the oldest management school in India and considered one of the best. It was founded in 1949 by jesuits. The Indian School of Business, located in Hyderabad, is more recent and much more Western Style. Its founding associate schools are Kellog and Wharton. Its associate schools are the London Business School and the MIT Sloan. One can read on their website: “With increased globalization, the ISB sees three important trends which will influence its direction for research and education in the coming years: 1.

Requirement for global competencies in this part of the world

2.

Globalization of Indian corporations

3.

Increasing interest in management best practices in emerging markets,

including India”76 The deliberate goal of the ISB is to provide “global” elites (read “corresponding to western standards) and is an interesting fact as regards our hypothesis on western influence. What is more, both institutions provide students with opportunities to spend some time studying abroad and receive foreign students, allowing exchange of ideas and culture through students.

"The Indian School of business” http://www.isb.edu/KnowISB/

76


45

For Profit? Looking at their websites, I had the impression that they wanted to attract attendance by promising good networking opportunities. Most of the events look like a matching opportunity for enterprises and investors. To verify this I used three criteria : the featuring of investors (as speakers), the use of a “start-up” language, and the reference to the bottom of the pyramid theory. Seven out of nine events feature investors. Three of the events refer on their websites to the bottom of the pyramid theory and all but two use a “venture capitalist” language (“funding start-up”, “business plan”…etc). All the event describe themselves using on their description the vocabulary of social entrepreneurship and development (like “change-makers”, “social issues”, “development” and so on). But not all of them add to this vocabulary the vocabulary of investment, start-ups and BoP theory. That is why we found the three following criteria interesting to classify the events. The fact to refer to the business at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) theory on their websites can be construed as a proof that the organizers believe in the fact that social entrepreneurship and the BoP are more or less the same thing. It helps us to establish our cartography of social entrepreneurs and events regarding their relation to profit. Events that refer to BoP on their website will be classified on the right of the chart (see hypothesis 2.6.2), under the definition of social entrepreneurship that includes BoP and accepts profits. A third of the events will therefore be classified like that, while the corresponding speakers will be considered as more profit oriented. This fact can constitute a criteria to distinguish between events. We assume that if they refer to BoP theory they are more profit oriented and we therefore split events in two groups, the group on the right being more profit oriented. Featuring investors is also an interesting figure. Some events feature speakers who worked for non-profit as well as investors – what we could call mixed speakers. But featuring investors reveals that organizers want to attract for-profit, not-for-profit or hybrid companies to their event. Featuring investors means attracting organizations that look for private and corporate funding. Organizations that look for private and corporate funding are more likely to be profit-oriented, or at least to include profit in their mechanism. It is therefore another element to classify our events: those who feature investors should be on the right of the chart


46

(at the right or under "not-for-profit" organizations). Seventy-eight percent of the events are in this case. Like for the use of BoP, we use the attendance of investors as a criteria to classify events and we split them in two groups, corresponding to their featuring of investors or not – their being more or less profit oriented. Another criteria used to classify events is the use of start up language on their website. Talking about “start-up” and “business plan competition” reveals a will to appeal to young companies that look for funding and understand this vocabulary. It is therefore a criteria similar to featuring investors. We believe that organizations that define themselves as “ventures” and “start-up” are more likely to be profit-oriented, or to use profit in their mechanism, than organizations that define themselves only as “non-profit” or “social enterprise”. Seventy-eight percent of events are concerned. Like the two preceding criteria, we use the presence of start up language as a criterion and split events in two groups, more or less profit oriented – assuming that they are more profit oriented if they quote start-up language. Finally, we have many indexes to assess the profit orientation of an event. We can gather them as in the following chart : Quoting BoP Unconvention

NCSE

Sankalp Confluence

Sociopreneurship
profit-oriented


52

From non-profits (% of speakers)

al nk Sa

hu as lM ia

So c

ve nc on U

p

p

n nt io

ka em Kh

en So ce cio pr en eu rs hi p

C

on

flu

XL RI

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) Regarding this figure, we consider that the more non-profit are featured, the less profitoriented is the event. Applying the same method as above it gives us the following classification: Number of non-profit speaking Social Mashup < Confluence < NCSE < Khemka, Unconvention < Sociopreneurship, Sankalp -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> profit-oriented


53

From for-profit company (% of speakers) 30 25 20 15 10 5

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em

Un co nv en tio n So ci al M as hu p

So

ci

op

re

ne

ur

sh

ip

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) Using the same method as above it gives us the following classification : Number of for-profit Confluencc, NCSE < Sociopreneurship < Social Mashup < Unconvention < Sankalp < Khemka ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> profit-oriented With the all the above classifications, we decide to make a compilation and, without ponderation, to create from it a general classification of events. COMPILATION


54

Quoting BoP Unconvention

NCSE

Sankalp

Sociopreneurship

Confluence

featuring not-for-profit Broadening the Image Another interesting classification comes from the number of scholar, which can be construed as the intellectual legitimacy that the event organizers want to display.


57

Scholars (% of speakers)

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci

op

re

ne

ur

sh

ip

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) NCSE, Social Mashup, Sociopreneurship < Unconvention < Sankalp < Khemka < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> featuring scholars We can go further in this analysis of the “legitimacy seeking” with the number of people from institution attending. We call “people from institution” speakers who come from the government of India and institutions such as the World Bank.


58

From an institution (% of speakers)

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci

op

re

ne

ur

sh

ip

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) NCSE, Sociopreneurship, Social Mashup < Sankalp, Unconvention < Khemka < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> featuring institution If we put this classification along the classification on scholar attendance we remark that they are remarkably similar. NCSE, Sociopreneurship, Social Mashup < Unconvention < Sankalp < Khemka < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> featuring scholars NCSE, Sociopreneurship, Social Mashup < Sankalp, Unconvention < Khemka < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> featuring institution


59

One can also remark that at one extremity we have the events which were at the extremities on the profit-oriented classification (Social Mashup and Sankalp). We can therefore conclude that there are two groups of events: those who feature a particular type of speakers corresponding to a specific ideology, and those who are featuring a broad range of speakers, coming from different fields and ideological background.

Cross-attendance The percentage of specialized networkers, as defined above, gives us an indicator of the “connectivity” of the event: is the event appearing as a “niche” event or as displaying “everybody” that matters in the field?

Specialized networker (% of speakers)

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci

op

re

ne

ur

sh i

p

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) Khemka < Sankalp < Social Mashup, Sociopreneurship < Unconvention < NCSE < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> featuring networkers


60

To verify this classification, we can use the percentage of cross-attendance of the speakers (which % of speakers spoke at other events).

Spoke at other events (% of speakers) 60 50 40 30 20 10

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci

op

re

ne

ur sh

ip

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) Sociopreneurship, Sankalp < Social Mashup < Khemka < Unconvention < Confluence < NCSE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> cross-attendance One can notice that those who have the smallest cross-attendance are also those who were on the extremities of the “profit-oriented” classification (Sankalp and Social Mashup). We can assume that the others try to be more consensual on the profit issues and attract therefore speakers from more diverse ideological background.


61

Gender of Speakers We also collected the gender of speakers. The difference of percentage is not very between events, which all feature a majority of men.

% of women speaking

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci o

pr en

eu

rs

hi

p

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) We can build from this a gender related classification. Sankalp < Sociopreneurship < Unconvention < NCSE < Khemka < Social Mashup < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> percentage of women One can notice that if we compare that scale with the profit oriented scale we see that the more profit-oriented is the event, the less women are speaking. We must nevertheless warn the reader that this figure is not very significant as difference of gender percentage are not very high between the different events.


62

The impact of Global Indians We will now study the attendance of people corresponding to our ideal-type: middle-class Indians living between the West and India and taking interest in development after making money in business, especially in high-tech related business. we will now consider three indicators. First, the percentage of speakers that declare on their biography that they studied abroad. Second the percentage of speakers that have an engineering background. Third, the percentage of speakers that have a studied business or management. We do not believe that having an engineering or management background makes you a representative of the West. But the fact is that the engineering and management studies makes you a part of the “Global Indian community” that we already evoked in the first part. In fact, young tech engineers and managers often go to the USA, Canada or the United Kingdom to study for a while, or for a project. A lot of them work for western companies in India, in business process outsourcing or other areas. And even if they do not travel or do not work for western companies, they are connected to the west by they peers. Thanks to these connections and to the ubiquity of telecommunications, it is easy for these people to get to know what is going on in the west. The percentage of speakers having studied abroad is high : it is of more than one quarter for most of the events. At Social Mashup, none declared having studied abroad in their biographies, but we believe that it may just be the effect of will to introduce themselves in a specific way.

Studied abroad (% of speakers)

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


ci

op

re

ne

ur sh

ip

en ce So

Co nf lu

XL

R

I

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0


63

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) Social Mashup < NCSE < Unconvention < Khemka < Sociopreneurship < Confluence, Sankalp ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> studied abroad One can notice that we find at one extremity (with nobody declaring studies abroad) Social Mashup, which is the less profit-oriented event according to our scale. At the other extremity we find Khemka, Sociopreneurship and Sankalp, which are, in the same order, at the other extremity of our profit-orientation scale. We can therefore draw a conclusion from this : the more profit-oriented is the event, the more western influenced it appears. The second figure we used is the percentage of speakers having an engineering background.

Engineer (% of speakers) 60 50 40 30 20 10

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci

op

re

ne

ur

sh

ip

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE)


64

Social Mashup < Khemka < Sankalp < Confluence < NCSE < Sociopreneurship < Unconvention ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> percentage of engineers The percentage of speakers having an engineering background is generally high, with four events having a percentage of thirty percent or higher. Again, Social Mashup is in a peculiar position, with the smallest relative amount of engineers featured. The third figure is the percentage of speakers having done business studies. Again, the percentage is high for nearly every event. Except for Social Mashup, 30% of the speakers studied business or management in all the events.

Studied management (% of speakers)

p al nk Sa

ka Kh em


So

ci

op

re

ne

ur

sh i

p

en ce Co nf lu

XL

R

I

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Note : XLRI on the chart refers to the National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (NCSE) Social Mashup < Unconvention < Khemka < NCSE < Sociopreneurship < Sankalp < Confluence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> studied business


65

As for the “studied abroad” figure, we find a strong similarity with our “profit-orientation” classification. Social Mashup was the less profit-oriented and have less people with a (declared) business background. Sankalp and Sociopreneurship were the most profit-oriented and have more people with a business background. We can say that profit is a divisive issue and creates three groups. The first is clearly dominated by engineers and managers and see social entrepreneurship as the introduction of profit in the economics of development, as a form of business of the pyramid – Sankalp is the epitome of it. The second group defines social entrepreneurship as a non-profit issue and is reluctant to display signs of western influence – Social Mashup is the epitome of it. The third group is more consensual and mixes people with different ideological background. But in this third group the rhetoric is more similar to the first group than the second : speakers talk about their studies abroad, there are a lot of engineers and managers, and the language of start-ups and BoP is used. Another discriminating criteria is therefore the visibility of Indians corresponding to the ideal-type of the “global Indian turned social entrepreneur”. We define the “global indianity” of an event as an index of the number of “global Indians turned social entrepreneurs” featured - as a reference to Smitha Radhakrishnan and her work on India’s new globalized middle class of tech workers living between Bangalore and the Silicon Valley.77 As for our profit-orientation scale, we can make a “global indianity” ordinal scale of events by combining our three scales. Again, the result is very rough, not cardinal, and without weighting of criteria, but it can help us to establish a cartography of events. COMPILATION Social Mashup < NCSE < Unconvention < Khemka < Sociopreneurship < Confluence, Sankalp ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> studied abroad Social Mashup