Social Entrepreneurship

ENTR 4800: Social Entrepreneurship

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ENTR 4800: Social Entrepreneurship
Schulich School of Business, York University
Mondays, 8:30am – 11:30am
Fall 2011

ENTR4800 Syllabus [PDF]

Course Instructors
Brief Description
Course Objectives
Organization of the Course
Assigned Reading
Evaluation of Student Performance
Academic Honesty
Schedule of Topics and Readings

Course Instructors

Norm Tasevski – Course Director
Phone: 416.736.2100 x 77960
Email: norm@socialentrepreneurship.ca
Office Hours: By appointment (preferably via Skype)

Karim Harji – Course Director
Phone: 416.736.2100 x 77960
Email: karim@socialentrepreneurship.ca
Office Hours: By appointment (preferably via Skype)

Brief Description

This course is for students interested in starting ventures that advance social/environmental good. Students will develop an in-depth understanding of social enterprise models that balance financial and social/environmental objectives in sustainable and profitable ways. Students will apply their business knowledge to build a sustainable business model for their own social venture, and pitch their social venture to potential investors.

Course Objectives

Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention. But along with its increasing popularity has come wide diversity in understandings of what a social entrepreneur is and does. In this course, you will:

  1. Be exposed to the theory of social entrepreneurship: You will be introduced to best practices, successes and failures, opportunities and constraints in the field of social entrepreneurship
  2. Build a business plan for your own social enterprise: Using tools and conceptual frameworks, you will have an opportunity to build an “investment quality” pitch deck and business plan for a new social venture
  3. Learn how to apply your business knowledge to advance social good: You will be given new perspectives on the opportunities for leveraging a business education to impact the social sector



Key Features

  • Diversity in Approaches – This course is designed to be an introduction to the varied models of social entrepreneurship that exist, and will give you an opportunity to apply these model(s) to the development of a social venture.
  • Established Process, New Applications – While the course will acknowledge the challenges that all businesses must face, we will examine in detail the unique challenges and opportunities of applying a market-based, entrepreneurial approach to creating social value.
  • Social & Financial Returns – We will explore the social capital markets and optimizing social and financial returns, and discuss issues related to measuring social impact.
  • Many Perspectives – Integrated throughout the course will be examples from complementary perspectives, including the developed and developing world, for-profit and nonprofit sectors, and local and international.
  • Guest Entrepreneurs – Where possible, we will bring in guest entrepreneurs who can speak to the course topics from their perspective.
  • Focus on Start-up and Growth – Finally, while the course will touch on the entire life cycle of a social enterprise, there will be a particular focus on startup and early growth.

Organization of the Course

We will use a variety of teaching methods to encourage intellectual understanding and a personal connection to the subject matter. Lecture sessions will be coupled with experiential techniques such as case studies, simulations, exercises, and group discussions. Guest speakers will also be a key component to student learning.

The “live case” method is one way that we make the lecture real. Instead of using a written case study, a real social entrepreneur will attend class, and will present a high level description of their business (mission, motivation, goals, etc). We then pose a series of questions to the students related to the entrepreneur’s venture. The guest speaker will interact directly with students (organized in groups), to help them refine their business models and/or bring in specific expertise and insights to the issues that they are seeking to address or develop further.

Your active contribution in class is an important aspect of the course and will enhance our learning experience.

Assigned Reading

Required Reading for this course includes the following (available for purchase from the York University Bookstore):

Recommended Course Text

  • “The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World”, by John Elkington, Pamela Hartigan and Klaus Schwab. 2008. Harvard Business School Publishing.

Course Website

  • We have created a website for this course – socialentrepreneurship.ca/entr4800
  • The most current version of this syllabus, a detailed listing of supplemental readings, lecture slides, and additional resources can be found on this site.
  • Note that lecture slides will be posted on the site after each class.

Evaluation of Student Performance

The course grading scheme for undergraduate courses conforms to the 9-point system used in other undergraduate programs at York. The possible course letter grades for a course (and the corresponding grade points awarded for each grade are:
A+ 9 grade points
A 8
B+ 7
B 6
C+ 5
C 4
D+ 3
D 2
F 0

A detailed description of the project, due dates and grading scheme will be provided in Class 2.
We will not use a fixed grading scale in this course. Students are reminded that they must maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 5.0 to remain in good standing and continue in the program, and to qualify for their degree. Schulich grading guidelines mandate a section GPA of between 5.5 and 7.0.

Individual Class Participation (20%)

  • Grade will be based on the quality of participation during in-class discussions, in-class group exercises, and questions for guest speaker presentations. Obviously, attendance in class is a prerequisite!
  • Evidence of participation outside of the classroom (e.g. in social entrepreneurship blogs, emailing the professors) may also be factored in

Video Assignment (10%)

During the semester, students will provide two video reviews of readings in the course. Additional details and instructions will be provided in class 2. The general guidelines are as follows:

  • Students will carry out this exercise individually, and will select which readings they wish to review by Class 2.
  • Students will record and upload a video that summarizes the chosen reading, as well as provide a summary of the article and key points. The video will be uploaded by the Friday before the class it is due, and it will be presented to the class as a contribution to the discussion.
  • Each video is worth 5%, and grading will be based on both both the content as well as the delivery of the videos.

Business Plan and Investment Pitch (70%)

Students will develop an “investment quality” business plan and investment pitch deck for a social venture, which will be presented to two panels – one with “social investors”, and the other with Angel investors. More information is available on the ENTR4800 Project Guidelines page.

The grading scheme:

  • Part 1: Motivations, drivers, and business model canvas (10%)
  • Part 2: Assessment of the business potential of the idea (15%)
  • Part 3: Marketing, organizational, financial and legal considerations (15%)
  • Part 4: Completed business plan and investment pitches (30%) (15% for social investor pitch, 15% for Angel investor pitch)

The details for the assignment (key deliverables, expectations and timelines for submission) will be provided separately.

Submitting Assignments

  • All assignments are due, in soft copy, at the start of the class (8:30am) in which they are due. After 8:31am, a late penalty will be assigned (10%/day). No hard copies will be accepted.
  • All assignments are to be submitted via email to entr4800@socialentrepreneurship.ca. Group members and numbers will be assigned by the end of class 2.
  • Please cc all group members when submitting an assignment.

Please use the following format for the Subject line of the Email:
“ENTR4800 – Business Model – Group (#) – Part (#)”
Please use the following format for the File Name of your Attachment:
“Group (#) – Part (#)”

Academic Honesty

Academic honesty is fundamental to the integrity of university education and degree programs. The Schulich School will investigate and will act to enforce academic honesty policies where apparent violations occur. Students should familiarize themselves with York University’s policy on academic honesty. It is printed in full in your student handbook and can also viewed on-line on the Schulich website, clicking through as indicated:

Schulich website –> ‘School’ –> ‘Academic Honesty’ –> ‘Schulich Academic Honesty Policy’

While academic dishonesty can take many forms, there are several forms of which students should be highly aware because they are the ones that are most likely to occur in the context of a specific course.

  • Plagiarism. Plagiarism is the presentation of information, ideas, or analysis generated by other people as being your own. It includes direct quotations as well a substantive paraphrases where the course of that information or idea is not clearly identified to the reader. Students should be careful to present their written work in a way that makes it completely clear in each and every cases where a quotation, a paraphrase, or an analysis is based on the work of other people. (This includes information from all sources, including websites.)
  • Cheating. Cheating is an attempt to gain an unfair advantage in an evaluation. Examples of such violations include (but are not limited to) consulting prohibited materials during an examination or copying from another student.
  • Failure to follow limitations on collaborative work with other students in preparing academic assignments. Each class differs in the mix of assignments and group-versus-individual preparation that is allowed. The instructor will make clear the extent of collaboration among students that is acceptable among students on various pieces of assigned work. Students should abide by those limitations and, if they are unsure about whether a certain level or form of collaboration would be acceptable, to clarify that question with the instructor in advance.
  • Aiding and abetting. A student is guilty of violating academic honesty expectations if he/she acts in a way that enables another student to engage in academic dishonesty. If a student knows (or should reasonably expect) that an action would enable another student to cheat or plagiarize, that student’s action constitutes an academic honesty violation. Illustrative examples include making your exam paper easily visible to others in the same exam or providing your own working or finished documents for an ‘individual assignment’ to another student (even if that other student said that he/she just wanted to ‘get an idea of how to approach the assignment’ or ‘to check whether they had done theirs correctly’).
  • Use of academic work in more than one course. Generally, academic work done for every course is ‘new’ work, done for that course only. If a student wishes to use some or all of the academic work done for an assigned task in one course in another course, the student must get explicit, prior permission from both instructors so that they agree that the scope and nature of the overlapping use of that work is such that it can fairly be counted toward both courses.

Schedule of Topics and Readings

The following list of lecture topics and readings indicate the material to be read, reviewed and/or prepared for the various class sessions. If any changes in this schedule become necessary, notifications will be posted on the course website (www.socialentrepreneurship.ca/entr4800), and where such changes need to be announced between class sessions, an email will be sent to students’ Lotus Notes email accounts, notifying them of the change.

  • Class 1 (Sept 12): Definitions and Examples of Social Entrepreneurship
  • Class 2 (Sept 19): Motivations and Drivers for Social Entrepreneurship
  • Class 3 (Sept 26): Business Modelling for Social Enterprise
  • Class 4 (Oct 3): Identifying Business Potential
  • Oct 10 – No Class
  • Class 5 (Oct 17): Financial Modelling
  • Class 6 (Oct 24): Operational and Human Resource Considerations
  • Class 7 (Oct 31): Marketing and Legal Considerations
  • Class 8 (Nov 7): Managing for Social Impact
  • Class 9 (Nov 14): Impact Investing and Social Finance
  • Class 10 (Nov 21): The Enabling Environment for Social Entrepreneurship
  • Class 11 (Nov 28): Student Pitches to Social Investors
  • Class 12 (Dec 5): Student Pitches to Angel Investors
  • Class 13 (Dec 12): Course Review