Title: Exploring meanings and the self of ethical entrepreneurs: a case of corporate community engagement within the SMEs in UK
Introduction
This paper provides a brief preview of some work in progress on the self-concept as a means of moral motivation in relation to, namely, ethical entrepreneurs. The study aims to explore the multidimensional self of the UK entrepreneurs through their ethical entrepreneurial practices, to examine the role of moral identity manifested in corporate ethical decisions within the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and to identify the meanings and functions of corporate community engagement. The self is viewed from both psychological and phenomenological perspectives of how entrepreneurs in the UK have experienced ethical and/or unethical business practices; and to what extent the self has shaped or has been shaped decisions on ethical and socially engagement for enterprises, especially the SMEs.
Applications to SPACE – new frontiers theme and Expected contribution
The study has discovered that apart from actual self and ideal self that are crucial to help an entrepreneur to develop a sense of moral affecting ethical business decisions, the social self and moral identity should be emphasised during their self-development and entrepreneurial learning processes. From this standpoint, it extends the characteristics of entrepreneurs and their cognitive thinking to be included moral identity (e.g. fairness, caring, giving, trustworthiness, and honesty) and the social self (e.g. complying with social standards, culture, and inclusion into society). This sheds some light to new frontiers of entrepreneurial moral psychology. It goes beyond philanthropy where enterprises and entrepreneurs are socially responsible agent, namely ethical corporate citizenship. Hence, this study has brought entrepreneurship research closer to ethics in addition to the extant literature. The remaining work (phrase two) will be exploring further in this study to examine the mechanisms and processes of mora self, moral salience, and ethically corporate community engagement.
Research context
Entrepreneurship has been seen as a multidisciplinary subject (Landström, 2005). Entrepreneurship research has diversely drawn from that of the economist (e.g. Say, 1855; Kirzner, 1973; Castro et al., 2004), of the sociologist (e.g. Aldrich and Waldinger, 1990; Portes et al., 2002), of the accounting and financial theories (e.g. Beatty, 1993; Kaplan, 1984; Chemmanur and Paeglis, 2005); of the psychologist (e.g. Begley and Boyd, 1987; Simon et al., 1999), and anthropologist (e.g. Pessar, 1995; Bletzer, 2003). With its complexity, many related concepts have been studied in relation to entrepreneurship such as “change management, innovation, environmental turbulence, product development, individualism and meaningfulness” (Bjerke, 2007, p.73). Herein, this paper brings psychological viewpoint to deeper investigation through individualism (i.e. ethical entrepreneurs) and meaningfulness with respect to notion of ‘self’ and ‘moral identity’ – based on moral psychology.
The self-concept is rooted in psychology but has been treated from different points of view and disciplines; these include sociology (Kaplan, 1986), psychoanalysis (Freud, 1923, 1946; Erikson, 1968), philosophy (Sartre, 1957), marketing-consumer research (Grubb and Grathwohl, 1967; Siry, 1982), and entrepreneurship (Poon and Ainuddin, 2006). However, this study sees an opportunity to extend the self-concept theory to the SMEs and entrepreneurship context.
To take the self-concept further in the areas of ethics and entrepreneurship, the relevant literatures are reviewed: the moral agency through social cognitive identity theory – that is moral identity (e.g. Aquino and Reed, 2002; Reed, 2002; Bandura, 2007; Weaver and Agle, 2002; Vitell et al., 2009), moral salience (e.g. Stets and Carter, 2011), social entrepreneurship (e.g. Mort et al., 2003; Peredo and McLean, 2006), and moral motivation and ethical decision-making in relation to entrepreneurship (e.g. McVea, 2009; Antadze and McGowan, 2017).
Research Methodology
Research methodology for this study is based on deeper layered reality that reflects upon the multidimensional self and entrepreneurial ethical practices. It upholds being in the world paradigm (Crotty, 1998), in which the self including possible selves and other self-related elements are explored around its contextual meanings and real enterprise experiences. In so doing, the study adopted the qualitative, existential phenomenology inquiry by conducting semi-structure (in-depth) phenomenological interviews with three SMEs entrepreneurs in UK (i.e. one interview from Hertfordshire and two interviews from London), through purposive samples serving for the initial findings. The participants in this study are entrepreneurs, operating their business in the UK and importantly who have been involved in social/community engagement (behavioural element) and concerned about ethical/unethical corporate practice (psychological element).
Data collection aims at description of the phenomenon, meanings, actual enterprise experiences, and its contexts. In-depth interviews are semi-structured which allow some flexibility for researcher to ask other questions that emerge from the conversation. In this study, it focuses on meanings through the self of an ethical entrepreneur, moral identity as motivation, and emerging meanings of ethically social enterprise (through a case of community engagement of the SMEs). The interview data was gone through data contextualisation that involves the inferential process (Spiggle, 1994) and hermeneutic circle (Thompson et al., 1994), and this is called ‘interpretation phenomenological analysis’ (Smith et al.,2008; Moustakas, 1994). With this data analysis approach, the study has produced an exhaustive description that explains essence of experience.
Initial findings
The self has played a significant role of moral and ethics in the entrepreneurs. Different dimensions of self (e.g. actual self, ideal self, social self, and moral self) have shaped the way the entrepreneurs developed their businesses and importantly how they have engaged themselves in the community. There is an interrelationship between the self (that is actual self and social self), moral identity, and corporate community engagement practice as well as other ethical business decisions – for instances, charity involvement, skill-based volunteering, free-of-charge open classes/workshops for community. Interestingly, the study found that upbringing and closed environment has impacted on how entrepreneurs defined the term ‘ethics’ and ‘being ethical’ to their lives in general and particularly within the enterprises. To some degree, religion plays the role to help the person develops and enhances morals and ethical decisions in business. One of the participants described that corporate community engagement is the outlet for him (Sam) to have a sense of social bond that he lacked from his childhood: “I like community feeling and being part of our society […] when I was a young lad, I was quite shy and timid so that led me being bullied and isolated from friends. Since I have my own business I feel this is the place that I can be involved, give good things to people and at the same feeling contented […] people take me in and I feel like I now have quite a family.” (Sam).
Therefore, at this stage of the findings there is some emotional and social involvement within processes of the self and community engagement. Whereas, morality and personal values are underpinned when the entrepreneurs encounter some ethical dilemma and make ethical business decisions in the light of social well-being.
References
Aldrich, H.E. and Waldinger, R. (1990). Ethnicity and entrepreneurship. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 111-135.
Antadze, N. and McGowan, K.A. (2017). Moral entrepreneurship: Thinking and acting at the landscape level to foster sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 25, 1-13.
Aquino, K. and Reed, A. II (2002) The Self Importance of Moral Identity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1423-1440.
Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193-209.
Beatty, R.P. (1993). The economic determinants of auditor compensation in the initial public offerings market. Journal of Accounting Research, 31, 294-302.
Begley, T.M. and Boyd, D.P. (1987). Psychological characteristics associated with performance in entrepreneurial firms and smaller businesses. Journal of Business Venturing, 2, 79-93.
Bletzer, K.V. (2003). Latino naming practices of small-town businesses in rural southern Florida. Ethnology, 42, 209-235.
Castro, R., Clementi, G.L. and MacDonald, G. (2004). Investor protection, optimal incentives, and economic growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119, 1131-1175.
Chemmanur, T.J. and Paeglis, I. (2005). Management quality, certification, and initial public offerings. Journal of Financial Economics, 76, 331-368.
Erikson, E.H. (1968). Identity: Youth and Crisis. Norton.
Freud, S. (1923). The Ego and the Id. London: Hogarth Press.
Freud, S. (1946). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. New York: International Universities Press.
Grubb, E.L. and Grathwohl, H.L. (1967). Consumer self concept, symbolism and market behaviour a theoretical approach. Journal of Marketing, 31, 22-27.
Kaplan, R.S. (1984). The evolution of management accounting. Accounting Review, 59, 390-418.
Kirzner, I.M. (1973). Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Landström, H. (2005). Entreprenörskapets rötter [The roots of entrepreneurship], 3rd ed., Lund: Studentlitteratur.
McVea, J. (2009). A field study of entrepreneurial decision-making and moral imagination. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(5), 491-504.
Mort, G. S., J. Weerawardena, K. Carnegie. 2003. Social entrepreneurship: Towards conceptualization. International Journal Nonprofit Voluntary Sector, 8(1) 76–88.
Peredo, A. M., M. McLean. 2006. Social entrepreneurship: A critical review of the concept. International World Business, 41(1) 56–65.
Pessar, P.R. (1995). The elusive enclave: Ethnicity, class, and nationality among Latino entrepreneurs in Greater Washington, DC. Human Organization, 54, 383-392.
Poon, J.M.L. Ainuddin, R.J. 2006. Effect of Self-concept Traits and Entrepreneurial Orientation on Firm Performance. International Small Business Journal, 24(1), 61-82.
Portes, A., Guarnizo, L.E. and Haller, W.J. (2002). Transnational entrepreneurs: An alternative form of immigrant economic adaptation. American Sociological Review, 67, 278-298.
Reed, A. II (2002). Social Identity as a Useful Perspective for Self-Concept-based Consumer Research. Psychology & Marketing, 19(3), 235-266.
Sartre, J.P. (1957). Transcendence of the Ego. New York: Noonday.
Simon, M., Houghton, S.M. and Aquino, K. (1999). Cognitive biases, risk perception, and venture formation: How individuals decide to start companies. Journal of Business Venturing, 15, 113-134.
Sirgy, M.J. (1982). Self-Concept in Consumer Behaviour: A Critical Review. The Journal of Consumer Research, 9(3), 287-300
Stets, J.E. and Carter, M.J. (2011). The Moral Self: Applying Identity Theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 74(2), 192-215.
Vitell, S.J. (2009). The Role of Religiosity in Business and Consumer Ethics: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Business Ethics, 90, 155-167.
Weaver, G.R. and Agle, B.R. (2002). Religiosity and Ethical Behaviour in Organizations: A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective. Academy of Management Review, 27(1), 77-97.
Topic: Accelerating Impact Funds flow into Core Portfolios for Social Enterprise.
This paper has been written as an application and further development of the paper presented to the 2017 ISBE Conference held in Belfast. It elaborates and reports on the application of the FRS model in two Australian communities where significant social impact is happening. The first is the Yarrabah Aboriginal Community in Far North Queensland and the second is at Learmonth a rural community in Central Victoria a southern Australian state.
The paper presents the need for social enterprise and impact broadly in the light of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, and more specifically in the context of the issues facing these two communities and communities more generally. The model is scalable and is of relevance for enterprise and community development and as such can meet the conference theme of Space, currently depressed or vacant, being filled through innovative methods of measuring and obtaining a financial return as well as a social return on investments.
The major point of this paper is that Impact Investment funds can be placed by institutional investors from within their core portfolio and these can earn a Financial Risk adjusted Relative Cash return as well as a Social return. (FRS) The two applications within the communities are prototypes to demonstrate that that Social Return is significant using measures that create a financial quantum on the social determinants and outcomes, as well as the financial returns. There are many existing measures of Social Impact, and through a Literature survey over 180 of these were discovered as applicable. However while they may be accurate for the specific purpose of measuring social outcomes they do not monetise as a return on investment.
This paper asserts that the flow of funds into core portfolios can be greatly accelerated by the application of a fractal approach to the design and measurement and enables modelling which include the integration of Financial, Risk and Social parameters, (FRS). The Fractal methodology is applied along the Value Chain by measuring the Value Contribution of each Entity Fractal within a Value Envelope along the chain. This approach drives innovative offerings for community development and social enterprise to be funded by the financial institutions who can demonstrate that they meet their accountability and duties to members and shareholders.
The Yarrabah application has been developed and is currently being applied after extensive community consultation, involving the Leadership Group of the Community Forum, the Town municipal council, the Traditional owners through their Proscribed Body Corporate, and leaders and community members from various operating entities such as the Health Centre and sporting clubs.. The series of community forums, identified five pillars for community sustainability. Namely; Health, Education, Law and Order, Tourism and Housing. These are totally interdependent, in that poor housing, with up to fifteen individuals in a small home and a housing waiting list of seven hundred people, causes youth the "live on the street" creating vandalism and law and order issues. When combined with high unemployment, and poor diet, health and education issues emerge.
The FRS model has identified entrepreneurial and enterprise opportunities in each of the pillars and is developing investment instruments and opportunities for institutions within the Financial Service sector.
The Learmonth project involves the redevelopment of a closed and unused school building, purchased from the government, and developing them as a Cider manufacturing and education enterprise. This will be own by the community with financial returns being reinvested into community projects. Community support is strong and the project has been funded by a small number of local Impact Investors, who are committed to the rebirth of the small community. The local area has a number of apple orchards and local orchardists will send their apples to the project for manufacture, or brewing into Cider products. The local community benefits from the increased tourism, employment, hospitality and financial support for local groups.
The paper is an applied practitioner approach to implementing the FRS model. While there have been difficulties experienced to date, these have not been due to the model, but external factors such as delays in planning and other permit applications. However the process in both locations, has given positive affirmation that the model is valid, relevant and can be applied and is scalable in other locations for application in other locations. A particular identified application and being applied within Yarrabah is for the monitoring of Chronic Disease. A framework for investment in interventions to deal with improved social outcomes, while producing good financial returns for service value chain providers, insurers and governments..
ISBE Conference 2019
Abstract
Topic
Proto-institutions, Sustainability and SMEs: A Systematic Literature Review
Applicability to the Conference Theme
This paper is a part of a wider study examining the role of proto-institutions in advancing environmental practices in SMEs, with a particular focus on Pakistan’s textile manufacturing sector. Environmental degradation is a prime global concern and economies around the world have established formal institutions of various kinds, such as legislative and regulatory bodies at national and local level (usually ministry of climate change, the planning commission, provincial environmental protection authorities) to address this issue (Klewitz et al. 2012; Wahga et al. 2018). But, parallel to these formal institutions are the ‘proto-institutions’ that are also working on achieving environmental sustainability targets. Proto-institutions relate to all those practices, technologies and rules narrowly diffused and weakly entrenched but that have potential to become institutionalised (Lawrence et al. 2002). Proto-institutions can comprise national, regional and international bodies like Cleaner Production Centers, World Wildlife Foundation, Associations of Manufacturers and Non-Governmental Organisations. Provisionally, subject to the outcome of a complete systematic review, the literature can be categorised into different streams including: ineffectiveness of formal institutions, rise of proto-institutions, role of intermediary organizations, environmental capabilities of firms, internal and external barriers to adoption of environmental practices in SMEs, impact of feedback from final product market, ethical position of owner manager and strategizing of SMEs for economic profits. For some SMEs, compliance to environmental practices helps in business growth whereas for others it adds into the cost (Revell and Blackburn 2007; Simpson et al. 2004; Wilson et al. 2012). Similarly, some owner-mangers have personal drive to adopt environmental practices whereas others lack it. The adoption of environmental practices by SMEs is mainly constrained by lack of finance, lack of knowledge, un-skilled labour, rise in cost of production and ethical demotivation (Del Brìo and Junquera 2003; Parker et al. 2009; Schaper 2002; Tilley 2000). These constraints are broadly moderated by ineffective institutions and incompetency of firms to strategize for economic gains. There is evidence to suggest that proto-institutions can help SMEs to overcome such constraints by imparting skills and knowledge through training and collaboration (Battaglia et al. 2010; Klewitz and Hansen 2014; Ortolano et al. 2014). Broadly, this study belongs to the ‘social, environmental and ethical enterprise’ track of the conference.
Aim
This study aims to provide a systematic review of literature and synthesize the debate on role of institutions (formal as well as informal), in the adoption of environmental practices in SMEs by undertaking a multi-level analysis. Also, this study intends to construct an integrated theoretical framework of institutions, SMEs and sustainability.
Methodology
At this early stage of the project it is expected that this paper will systematically review the studies published, tentatively, over last 25 years including peer reviewed articles from Science Direct, EBSCO, Emerald, ProQuest entrepreneurship, JSTOR, Scopus, Wiley Online Library, SAGE Journals, Google Scholar and the grey literature. After scoping of the literature, the search strategy will be designed to collect relevant articles by using Boolean logic. The search strategy will be divided into different streams; stream comprising overall literature on the topic; stream comprising variety of theoretical foundations used in studies and a stream comprising various methodologies used in the relevant studies. The search results will be obtained by using various key terms (for example, sustainability, entrepreneurship, formal institutions, informal institutions, small and medium enterprises, non-governmental organizations, community organizations, corporate social responsibility, environmental practices, institutional theory, stakeholder theory, institutional entrepreneurs, social capital, sustainable development, circular economy, environmental economics, small firms argument, mixed methods research, primary research, secondary research, case study design, survey based studies, qualitative study, quantitative study, focused group discussion, semi-structured interviews). The search strategy will be followed by data evaluation strategy in which a study is deemed relevant or irrelevant at first stage by reading the abstract followed by analysis of scope and design of the study. The inclusion and exclusion strategy will be made transparent to remove the biasness of researcher. Only those articles will be included which would be relevant to the broader research question of this study. A systematic analysis will be conducted to extract themes/dimensions in the existing literature which will be synthesized at latter stage. The synthesis strategy includes combing different themes / constructs in a meaningful way to develop a theoretical framework and highlight gaps in the existing literature proposing new areas for investigation.
Contribution
The literature on reasons for emergence, coexistence and impact of proto-institutions on adoption of environmental practices in SMEs is relatively thin. The existing body of literature is dominated by research on developed nations that is generally quantitative in nature and lacks observations on underlying reasons for different observed phenomena. Also, the country and industry specific literature is relatively thin. The review recommends further qualitative or mixed methods-based enquiries at policy level for a better understanding of the role of institutions, environmental practices and SMEs in developing countries and industry specific context. Tentatively, this study will contribute to the existing stream of knowledge by synthesizing the debate on role of proto-institutions in making SMEs environmentally responsible. The study will provide multi-level analysis of existing literature on the subject under research. Also, this study expects to explain the evolution of proto-institutions as well to designing a theoretical framework which will integrates proto-institutions, sustainability and SMEs dimensions in developing countries context.
Implications for policy
The analysis of this paper can impact SME policy; environmental policy and policy related to institutional settings. Potentially, this research paper can feed into different policies by highlighting critical factors that may bring changes to the existing settings of policies in a way that SMEs become more likely to adopting sustainable practices; public institutions become more effective in environmental protection; public organisations help to promote the development of proto-institutions and achievement of sustainable development goals.
Implications for practice
This paper highlights multiple findings including factors affecting SMEs in becoming environmentally responsible, reasons for ineffectiveness of formal institutions and role of stakeholders. These finding can potentially help entrepreneurs and stakeholders (formal and informal) in improving their efforts and practices to protect the environment at large.
Keywords: Institutions, Proto-institutions, SMEs, Environmental sustainability
References:
Battaglia, Massimo, Lara Bianchi, Marco Frey and Fabio Iraldo. 2010. "An innovative model to promote CSR among SMEs operating in industrial clusters: Evidence from an EU project." Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 17(3):133-141.
Del Brìo, Jesùs Angel and Beatriz Junquera. 2003. "A review of the literature on environmental innovation management in SMEs: implications for public policies." Technovation 23(12):939-948.
Klewitz, Johanna and Erik G Hansen. 2014. "Sustainability-oriented innovation of SMEs: a systematic review." Journal of Cleaner Production 65:57-75.
Klewitz, Johanna, Anica Zeyen and Erik G Hansen. 2012. "Intermediaries driving eco-innovation in SMEs: a qualitative investigation." European Journal of Innovation Management 15(4):442-467.
Lawrence, Thomas B, Cynthia Hardy and Nelson Phillips. 2002. "Institutional effects of interorganizational collaboration: The emergence of proto-institutions." Academy of management journal 45(1):281-290.
Ortolano, Leonard, Ernesto Sanchez-Triana, Javaid Afzal, Chaudhary Laiq Ali and Susan A Rebellón. 2014. "Cleaner production in Pakistan's leather and textile sectors." Journal of Cleaner Production 68:121-129.
Parker, Craig M, Janice Redmond and Mike Simpson. 2009. "A review of interventions to encourage SMEs to make environmental improvements." Environment and planning C: Government and policy 27(2):279-301.
Revell, Andrea and Robert Blackburn. 2007. "The business case for sustainability? An examination of small firms in the UK's construction and restaurant sectors." Business strategy and the environment 16(6):404-420.
Schaper, Michael. 2002. "Small firms and environmental management: predictors of green purchasing in Western Australian pharmacies." International small business journal 20(3):235-251.
Simpson, Mike, Nick Taylor and Karen Barker. 2004. "Environmental responsibility in SMEs: does it deliver competitive advantage?" Business strategy and the environment 13(3):156-171.
Tilley, Fiona. 2000. "Small firm environmental ethics: how deep do they go?" Business Ethics: A European Review 9(1):31-41.
Wahga, Aqueel Imtiaz, Richard Blundel and Anja Schaefer. 2018. "Understanding the drivers of sustainable entrepreneurial practices in Pakistan’s leather industry: a multi-level approach." International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research 24(2):382-407.
Wilson, Christopher DH, Ian David Williams and Simon Kemp. 2012. "An evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of environmental legislation in small and medium‐sized enterprises: Experiences from the UK." Business strategy and the environment 21(3):141-156.
• Topic
Social entrepreneurship is associated with the contemporary phenomenon in which the socio-economic development of a company takes place by finding solutions for social problems (Zahra and Wright 2016). As social enterprises address social issues and government is the main responsible entity to address such issues such as unemployment, it is likely that both entities must collaborate for effective solutions to address the social issues. On the other hand, evidence indicates that compared to other age groups, young people are more likely to join in a social enterprise (Ho, Clarke, and Dougherty 2015). The underlying reason is that they can earn a living while supporting various social causes that they have a passionate for and they get more job satisfaction. Young people are more likely to care about world and environment and make efforts towards betterment of the society. However, they also face significantly more barriers to become entrepreneurs such as lack of financial resources, skills and experience. Support from government and involvement of youth community are likely to have positive impact on the promotion of social enterprises in any economy such as Indonesia.
There has been a rise in social enterprises in Indonesia. Therefore it is important to analyse factors that play a positive role in the promotion of social enterprises in this economy. The role of government and youth in social enterprise sector has been identified as one of the positive factors in other countries, particularly European countries. Thus, this study aims to assess the role of Indonesian government in promoting social entrepreneurship among youth in Indonesia.
Indonesia is considered to be a populous country which has been facing a myriad of social and economic problems (Anggadwita and Dhewanto 2016). It has been fervently debated whether the government of Indonesia has a significant influence on training and education of social entrepreneurship (Idris and Hijrah Hati 2013). The debates on this issue have been related to low level of government’s involvement due to which the progress for the development is relatively slow. The case study analysis conducted by Wiguna and Manzilati (2014) stated that in Indonesia, the dominant and leading form of employment has been considered as within nonformal sector. Non-formal sector is the one which is not controlled by the government (Latchem 2014). In particular, social entrepreneurship in Indonesia has a main focus on the micro-enterprises. Traditionally, as said by Roth (2014), small business in non-formal sector of Indonesia has been characterized by the primary methods of production and has a limited access to capital and market which has led to the underdevelopment of the social entrepreneurship sector.
In many of the developing countries, while facing many challenges, social entrepreneurship has been the reason for achieving popular support for the government in the society. However, Razafindrambinina and Sabran (2014) stated that in developing countries like Indonesia, social enterprises have been exempted from the taxes which challenges government’s involvement in the development of social entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the government of Indonesia has created a regulatory framework for social entrepreneurs in order to support the mission of social entrepreneurs and for gaining socioeconomic development in the country. Thus, this study aims to assess the role of Indonesian government in promoting social entrepreneurship among youth in Indonesia.
• Applicability to the conference theme – ‘SPACE - exploring new frontiers and entrepreneurial places
It is applicable to the conference theme as it addresses the role that government which is an important and powerful player in supporting enterprise activities. Moreover, the shared insights and lessons from a particularly place, Indonesia, may then inspire academics, policy makers and practitioners to address their challenges in other localities.
• Aim
The research aims at assessing the role of the Indonesian government towards the promotion of social entrepreneurship among young students. In order to achieve this aim, four objectives have been identified: investigate current status of social enterprises in Indonesia; critically assess the willingness of developing social enterprises among young students in Indonesia; investigate the role of government in promoting social enterprise among students in Indonesia; provide recommendations in improving government’s role in promoting social enterprise.
• Methodology
This research comprises both primary and secondary data in addressing the research objectives. Existing academic and industry literature was reviewed in understanding both social entrepreneurship broadly and in Indonesia specifically prior to primary data collection. Quantitative method was adopted in acquiring first-hand data. 100 usable responses were collected through Bristol Online Survey. A serial of statistical analysis were then performed.
• Contribution
This research provides further insights on Indonesia as a populous country with a myriad of economic and social challenges. The study seconds the opinions of Idris and Hijrah Hati (2013) that the Indonesian government can play a significant role in training and educating young people and promote the concept of social entrepreneurship in order to reap both social and economic benefits from this phenomenon. The research contributes to the current understanding of the various support that social entrepreneurs need and the importance of Indonesia’s non-formal sector. In particular, it highlighted that government can and needs to play a key role in supporting the sector. While designing a set of effective and tailored policies in promoting youth entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship is challenging, government should utilise the strengths of public, private and civil society for the benefit of the region. A set of recommendations were also presented.
• Implications for policy
The paper derives a set of policy recommendations in promoting social entrepreneurship among Indonesia’s young people. First of all, it is key for government to not only raise social issues but also promote the impact and benefit of social enterprises in the Indonesia society. Effective strategies involves actions like utilising the strengths of all stakeholders and promoting success stories (Wilson and Post 2013). Secondly, it is important for government to understand that the development of an entrepreneurial culture is a long-term task. Thus, government can incorporate appropriate entrepreneurship education in school curriculum as Lombard (2014) finds that such early intervention has a positive impact on their willingness to undertake entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, a sustainable ecosystem needs to be developed to provide support and services beyond a short term. It is key to engaging all stakeholders in the ecosystem. In particular, private sector involvement is what guarantees the motivation and perspective of self-sustaining development for these new businesses. In addition, the government should also facilitate alliances between entrepreneurs and established companies to favour the scalability of new businesses (Base et al 2014). Other recommendations include the measurement and monitoring the process and providing necessary support such as financial support.
Title: Exploring meanings and the self of ethical entrepreneurs: a case of corporate community engagement within the SMEs in UK
Introduction
This paper provides a brief preview of some work in progress on the self-concept as a means of moral motivation in relation to, namely, ethical entrepreneurs. The study aims to explore the multidimensional self of the UK entrepreneurs through their ethical entrepreneurial practices, to examine the role of moral identity manifested in corporate ethical decisions within the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and to identify the meanings and functions of corporate community engagement. The self is viewed from both psychological and phenomenological perspectives of how entrepreneurs in the UK have experienced ethical and/or unethical business practices; and to what extent the self has shaped or has been shaped decisions on ethical and socially engagement for enterprises, especially the SMEs.
Applications to SPACE – new frontiers theme and Expected contribution
The study has discovered that apart from actual self and ideal self that are crucial to help an entrepreneur to develop a sense of moral affecting ethical business decisions, the social self and moral identity should be emphasised during their self-development and entrepreneurial learning processes. From this standpoint, it extends the characteristics of entrepreneurs and their cognitive thinking to be included moral identity (e.g. fairness, caring, giving, trustworthiness, and honesty) and the social self (e.g. complying with social standards, culture, and inclusion into society). This sheds some light to new frontiers of entrepreneurial moral psychology. It goes beyond philanthropy where enterprises and entrepreneurs are socially responsible agent, namely ethical corporate citizenship. Hence, this study has brought entrepreneurship research closer to ethics in addition to the extant literature. The remaining work (phrase two) will be exploring further in this study to examine the mechanisms and processes of mora self, moral salience, and ethically corporate community engagement.
Research context
Entrepreneurship has been seen as a multidisciplinary subject (Landström, 2005). Entrepreneurship research has diversely drawn from that of the economist (e.g. Say, 1855; Kirzner, 1973; Castro et al., 2004), of the sociologist (e.g. Aldrich and Waldinger, 1990; Portes et al., 2002), of the accounting and financial theories (e.g. Beatty, 1993; Kaplan, 1984; Chemmanur and Paeglis, 2005); of the psychologist (e.g. Begley and Boyd, 1987; Simon et al., 1999), and
anthropologist (e.g. Pessar, 1995; Bletzer, 2003). With its complexity, many related concepts have been studied in relation to entrepreneurship such as “change management, innovation, environmental turbulence, product development, individualism and meaningfulness” (Bjerke, 2007, p.73). Herein, this paper brings psychological viewpoint to deeper investigation through individualism (i.e. ethical entrepreneurs) and meaningfulness with respect to notion of ‘self’ and ‘moral identity’ – based on moral psychology.
The self-concept is rooted in psychology but has been treated from different points of view and disciplines; these include sociology (Kaplan, 1986), psychoanalysis (Freud, 1923, 1946; Erikson, 1968), philosophy (Sartre, 1957), marketing-consumer research (Grubb and Grathwohl, 1967; Siry, 1982), and entrepreneurship (Poon and Ainuddin, 2006). However, this study sees an opportunity to extend the self-concept theory to the SMEs and entrepreneurship context.
To take the self-concept further in the areas of ethics and entrepreneurship, the relevant literatures are reviewed: the moral agency through social cognitive identity theory – that is moral identity (e.g. Aquino and Reed, 2002; Reed, 2002; Bandura, 2007; Weaver and Agle, 2002; Vitell et al., 2009), moral salience (e.g. Stets and Carter, 2011), social entrepreneurship (e.g. Mort et al., 2003; Peredo and McLean, 2006), and moral motivation and ethical decision-making in relation to entrepreneurship (e.g. McVea, 2009; Antadze and McGowan, 2017).
Research Methodology
Research methodology for this study is based on deeper layered reality that reflects upon the multidimensional self and entrepreneurial ethical practices. It upholds being in the world paradigm (Crotty, 1998), in which the self including possible selves and other self-related elements are explored around its contextual meanings and real enterprise experiences. In so doing, the study adopted the qualitative, existential phenomenology inquiry by conducting semi-structure (in-depth) phenomenological interviews with three SMEs entrepreneurs in UK (i.e. one interview from Hertfordshire and two interviews from London), through purposive samples serving for the initial findings. The participants in this study are entrepreneurs, operating their business in the UK and importantly who have been involved in social/community engagement (behavioural element) and concerned about ethical/unethical corporate practice (psychological element).
Data collection aims at description of the phenomenon, meanings, actual enterprise experiences, and its contexts. In-depth interviews are semi-structured which allow some flexibility for researcher to ask other questions that emerge from the conversation. In this study, it focuses on meanings through the self of an ethical entrepreneur, moral identity as motivation, and emerging meanings of ethically social enterprise (through a case of community engagement of the SMEs). The interview data was gone through data contextualisation that involves the inferential process (Spiggle, 1994) and hermeneutic circle (Thompson et al., 1994), and this is called ‘interpretation phenomenological analysis’ (Smith et al.,2008; Moustakas, 1994). With this data analysis approach, the study has produced an exhaustive description that explains essence of experience.
Initial findings
The self has played a significant role of moral and ethics in the entrepreneurs. Different dimensions of self (e.g. actual self, ideal self, social self, and moral self) have shaped the way the entrepreneurs developed their businesses and importantly how they have engaged themselves in the community. There is an interrelationship between the self (that is actual self and social self), moral identity, and corporate community engagement practice as well as other ethical business decisions – for instances, charity involvement, skill-based volunteering, free-of-charge open classes/workshops for community. Interestingly, the study found that upbringing and closed environment has impacted on how entrepreneurs defined the term ‘ethics’ and ‘being ethical’ to their lives in general and particularly within the enterprises. To some degree, religion plays the role to help the person develops and enhances morals and ethical decisions in