Article #3: Social Innovation and Social Enterprise in the Classroom: Frances Westley on Bringing Clarity and Rigor to Program Design
This interview with Frances Westley, who holds the J.W. McConnell Chair in Social Innovation at the University of Waterloo and leads the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience, explores what she thinks scholars must weigh in designing curricula for social innovation.
Key points from the article:
1) Social entrepreneurs are distinguished from traditional entrepreneurs in that they address not so much material needs, but social needs.
2) Much in an entrepreneurship program in a business school can teach social entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs have to understand and navigate a different kind of market for resources. For example, they need to be taught social finance.
3) Teach case studies that do not assume the ability of a strategist to plan everything out and foresee and understand all the dynamics at play. It’s about learning how to move ideas through systems, how to find champions, or how to recognize opportunity.
4) If we design the right kinds of curricula we could help students develop a capability for nurturing system change.
5) We need experimentation in social innovation and to give entrepreneurs practical skills and analytic frameworks.