Message from the Director
Professor Ray Fisman
“Social Enterprise” has come to connote very different things to different people. Rather than trying to add yet another attempt at an authoritative definition to an already crowded field, I’d like to provide some insight into what social enterprise means to us and our program at Columbia Business School. The view from 60,000 feet, so to speak, is that social enterprise comprises the issues and activities that lie at the intersection of business practice and the interests of society. This incorporates questions of how businesses impact society through their strategies and operations – by reducing their carbon footprints, developing products to serve disadvantaged communities, supporting charities, and myriad other activities. It also includes the application of business and management principles to help a wider range of organizations – governments, nonprofits and social ventures – to perform their best.
Why social enterprise now? Despite much handwringing over the pressures on the corporate bottom line wrought by the economic downturn, the practice of social enterprise is if anything more salient now than ever before. Companies need to be more thoughtful and strategic in considering their social impact (rather than jettisoning such concerns completely). And with a scarcer supply of jobs in traditional areas, many more students are broadening their employment searches and rethinking their priorities on what’s worth devoting their lives to doing.
Social Enterprise Program at Columbia Business School
The mission of the SEP is to advance the understanding of how management can contribute to society and the environment and to develop the next generation of social enterprise leaders. We achieve this by supporting the creation and communication of new ideas by Columbia Business School faculty and the curricular and extra-curricular opportunities of Columbia Business School students.
We have chosen our areas of particular focus – sustainability and the environment; international development; public and nonprofit management; and social entrepreneurship – to reflect our particular strengths and student interests. Overall, one of our less than modest goals is to be the pre-eminent generator of leadership – both people and ideas – in the world of social enterprise. We believe we’re already well on our way to getting there.
When I arrived at Columbia Business School a little over a decade ago, social enterprise was a small collection of like-minded students who felt largely limited to a small range of courses and extra-curricular activities to satisfy their interests. Today, we represent a dominant force within the School. There are over a dozen course offerings focused directly on social enterprise, a range of extracurricular opportunities that satisfy the many interests that students wish to pursue. Over 450 students are involved in our clubs, and a rapidly growing number of prospective students identify social enterprise as one of their primary interests.
We have traditionally been student-oriented in our efforts,
and our program remains first and foremost focused on developing the next
generation of social enterprise leaders. We now have a full menu of
opportunities that prospective students have come to expect from any of the
flagship programs in social enterprise: our summer internship and loan
assistance programs support students working with organizations in the U.S. and
abroad; a student-run investment fund, Microlumbia, sends students around the
world to evaluate and invest in microfinance institutions; consulting programs
send students from Harlem to Haiti to provide guidance and advice to nonprofits
and budding social entrepreneurs; and our nonprofit board leadership program
connects students to board mentors at nonprofits from Literacy Inc. to Carnegie
Hall.
From Research to Practice in Social Enterprise
In social enterprise, we have taken to heart the School’s vision of connecting research and faculty to real-world practice. It is this integration of students and faculty members that sets our program apart from many of its peers. The program itself is overseen by professors actively engaged in research – topics range from corruption in Indonesia to assessing teacher quality in New York Schools to motivations for corporate giving. Yet we don’t wish to be ivory tower theorists – our work is often in collaboration with companies and nonprofits, seeking answers that help us to understand the world while helping specific organizations function more effectively. This engagement is all the more exciting given that New York City is Columbia’s back yard, with a dynamic and vibrant social enterprise sector and a regular stop for leaders and industry practitioners from around the world.
In addition to publishing our work in peer-reviewed academic journals, we take pride in communicating with a broader audience through case-writing, publishing in the popular press, and bringing research – our own and that of others in our fields – to the student experience.
This connection to student life is crucial. Student efforts are often supported by faculty mentoring and guidance while in school, and faculty often serve as advisory board members to social ventures – of both the for-profit and nonprofit variety – that coalesce after graduation. But more than anything, it is the steady informal interaction among faculty, students and the experts in practice in New York City and beyond that we also draw on, that makes Columbia such a special place to be involved in social enterprise for all of us.
