Suggestions for the next decade of social enterprise work and research at Harvard Business School were offered even as School's Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI) celebrated its first ten years of existence.
The question at hand: What will the next ten years of social enterprise look like at HBS, and how can the School continue to contribute to the social sector in meaningful and important ways?
The overriding sentiment from panelists: Think big; change the way the world works.
Nancy M. Barry (HBS MBA '75), president of Woman's World Banking (WWB), urged the SEI to take a problem-solving approach, using cases and research to examine social issues and explore ways to solve them.
She encouraged Harvard to take on the role of catalyst, using its resources and talents to show businesses that they can do well by doing goodwhat she termed "enlightened capitalism." She proposed that HBS and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government collaborate by first choosing a cause such as global poverty and then working to fix it. "Change the way the world works," she challenged.
Barry warned against a tendency to focus solely on nonprofit organizations and routine management issues that are covered in any business school education.
Thomas J. Tierney (HBS MBA '80), founder of Bridgespan, a nonprofit consulting company, offered another challenge and framework for the audience to use in formulating ideas about the future of SEI: What would this university have to do to increase its social impact on the world ten-fold in a decade?
Don't let politics lie outside the boundaries of social enterprise. |
Mark H. Moore, Kennedy School of Government |
Tierney focused on what he sees as a "crisis of leadership" in social enterprise. People are leaving the sector because of issues of money, geography, and burnout, and often there aren't enough qualified, socially oriented leaders to replace them. With money piling into the sector, we need leaders who have the skills to address the complex issues involved in running a social enterprise, he said.
This leadership crisis won't be solved simply by HBS turning out more leaders, he continued. Educational institutions involved in social enterprise issues need to work together to train leaders and solve social problems.
One factor working against educational institutions interested in producing more socially aware leaders is business school rankings produced by various publications. The lower starting salaries earned by graduates going into nonprofits can drop a school's ranking, Tierney said. These rankings should begin to take the nonprofit sector into account, perhaps weighting salaries of nonprofit sector graduates differently. Publications should also rate schools on their contributions to society.
Mark H. Moore, a professor at the Kennedy School and director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, said HBS should look at the importance that governments play both in creating social problems and in helping to remedy them by offering incentives to philanthropies and corporations. Government has the power to affect both the supply and demand of what social enterprises hope to address.
Running an efficient, sustainable nonprofit is difficult because of limited revenue streams. And it is difficult to expect individual donors and philanthropies to fund nonprofit ventures indefinitely.
"Don't let politics lie outside the boundaries of social enterprise," Moore said.
The timing is phenomenal and HBS should aim very, very high. |
Thomas J. Tierney, Bridgespan |
Both Barry and Moore emphasized the importance of bringing multinational corporations into the picture. Systemic problems can be broader in scope than just one nation or government can addressthere is no "state" internationally, Moore said. That's where businesses and organizations that operate internationally can play a role.
"Private multinationals have got to care," said Barry.
Capital is flowing into the sector, corporations are trying to help, and the government is asking NGOs and nonprofits to do more. "The timing is phenomenal," Tierney said, "and HBS should aim very, very high."
Panelists praised the impact SEI has created over the past ten years but emphasized the great challenges and opportunities ahead.
The panel was moderated HBS professor V. Kasturi Rangan.