Hu Panpan, a college graduate from Feidong County in Anhui Province, started an e-commerce business in her hometown by selling local agricultural products to all over the country through the WeChat platform. Her entrepreneurship has helped increase the villagers’ income and alleviate their poverty. Photo: PEOPLE’S  DAILY

On July 25, the first China Social Entrepreneurship Research Forum was hosted by the China Social Entrepreneurship Research Center at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SHUFE). More than 120 experts and scholars exchanged views on building a society friendly to entrepreneurship.

Following rapid economic growth, social problems concerning environment, energy, education, health, employment and poverty are emerging. People are increasingly eager to find a new path to more sustainable and inclusive growth outside the traditional powers of government and market.

Social entrepreneurship advocates adopting market principles to provide social services, maintaining the sustainable growth of a start-up while fulfilling social goals. It is different from traditional business entrepreneurship in that it puts the social mission first. It is market-oriented, but features social innovation, said Liu Zhiyang, associate dean of the College of Business at SHUFE.

He also said that at present, social enterprises in China are rapidly growing, demonstrating three characteristics: First, social entrepreneurs mainly are young- to middle-aged, are highly educated and have a business background. Second, most social enterprises are still in the start-up and growth period, and scales are generally small. Third, social enterprises cover a wide range of industries and focus on social issues and people’s livelihood. Meanwhile, China’s social entrepreneurship is facing problems including constraints in legitimacy, financing and regulation, and it is in urgent need of inclusive, supportive policies.

Social entrepreneurship has become a global movement, helping narrow the gap between emerging economies and developed countries. In the view of Shaker Zahra, a professor from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, the essence of social entrepreneurship is the capability to resolve complicated social problems through innovative means. At present, academic research in social entrepreneurship focuses on individuals in developed countries. It needs to pay more attention to enterprises, particularly in emerging economies.

Fairness and equality as well as resource optimization are the theoretical pillars of social entrepreneurship, which plays a crucial role in poverty reduction, said Si Xiaofu, a professor from the School of Management at Zhejiang University. He pointed out that the traditional approaches have shortcomings. For example, assistance from international institutions like the World Bank is not targeted enough, while charity from the private sector can easily make recipients lose the incentive to be self-dependent. Poverty remains a significant problem for many countries around the world. One of China’s successes in poverty alleviation has been the encouragement of local entrepreneurship by supporting innovation, small and micro start-ups, and entrepreneurs from humble backgrounds.

Lin Song, associate dean of the School of Business at Central University of Finance and Economics, said that entrepreneurship not only conduces to   the employment and raising income of poverty-stricken populations, but also produces spillover effects brought by new products and technology, which can benefit the economically disadvantaged.

(edited by CHEN ALONG)