Social entrepreneurship as medium to growing economy of communities

• Main Authors: Yohan Kurniawan, Wan Mohamad Wan Abdullah, Nur Azuki Yusuff, Farok Zakaria
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://discol.umk.edu.my/id/eprint/8904/1/Paper%201.pdf; http://discol.umk.edu.my/id/eprint/8904/

Entrepreneurship is a multidimensional phenomenon and is shaped by the context in which it operates. The entrepreneurial process, generally defined as ‘how, by whom and with what effects opportunities to create new goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited’ (Shane and Venkatarman, 2000), it is very much conditioned by the level of economic development and the cultural, political and social contexts in which it apperars (Atamer and Torres, 2008). The concept of social entrepreneurship (SE) is, in practice, recognized as encompassing a wide range of activities: enterprising individuals devoted to making a difference; social purpose business ventures dedicated to adding for-profit motivations to the nonprofit sector; new types of philanthropists supporting venture capital-like ‘investment’ portfolios; and nonprofit organizations that are reinventing themselves by drawing on lessons learned from the business world. Social entrepreneurship as a practice that integrates economic and social value creation has a long heritage and a global presence. The concept of social entrepreneurship is still poorly defined and its boundaries to other fileds of study remain fuzzy. Social entrepreneurship has tended to spring up fastest in areas with underused assets, in particular high unemployment, and derelict or redundant buildings and land. Social entrepreneurs are often better able to discern the potential value of new activities, and can usually provide services and activities at much lower cost than public agencies that depend on professionals who live outside the area, and have to pay for overheads in more expensive city centres. However, although the potential of social entrepreneurship may be greatest in poor areas, its practice can be harder (Nicholls, 2006). This paper discusses how the social entrepreneurship concept can help to promote the growth of economy among the communities in Tumpat, Kelantan. The participants involved are working together with these industries, and thus making the industries grow. When the industries grow, hencefort, participants will create more new industries in the community that will further support the development of the community. The main key of the social entrepreneurship concept is heart, it means that the participants must come and work together with one purpose that is to help the community to grow and acquire economic stability. This entails that they should refrain themselves from making profit solely for themselves. This paper also describes the importance of the implementation of management strategy and the concept of industrial clusters as one of the strategies in developing the economy of a community.