Rama Krishna Reddy Kummitha

Institutionalising design thinking in social entrepreneurship: A contextual analysis into social and organizational processes

Purpose Design thinking is attracting practitioners and researchers in various walks of life. User integration principle as part of design thinking is expected to transform product and service creation and delivery. Accordingly, various organisations that venture into design thinking develop customised solutions and serve people’s needs. Social enterprises, which are familiar for their superior social value creation, have also claimed to embark upon this innovative approach to address wicked problems. The current paper makes an attempt to analyse various social and organisational processes that promote social enterprises to adopt design thinking to create products, which are relevant and viable among user groups. This paper finds that by adopting design thinking, social enterprises portray their product innovation genre, thereby representing their passion in addressing wicked problems more effectively. Design/methodology/approach This research adopts a qualitative case study method to understand the practice of design thinking in social enterprises. Findings In this study, it is found that that social enterprises adopt design thinking as a methodology while exploring solutions for stubborn problem space. However, neither communities nor social entrepreneurial teams are aware that they are carrying out design thinking practices. This research finds that social entrepreneurs and their teams take up designer roles and carry out designing processes by continuously consulting with user groups. One of the major reasons for the unintended adoption of design thinking is related to community integration and user participation in the day-to-day practices of social enterprises. Originality/value This study offers original research to understand social entrepreneurial exploration to adopt design thinking to create social value.

Social Entrepreneurship, Energy and Urban Innovations

Energy has become a central focus of human existence and lack of access to energy is an indication of lack of access to many basic needs. Especially people in developing countries face a greater hurdle to access electricity. Given the constraints in the capacities of developing countries, it may be difficult to cater for the escalating energy needs in urban areas unless innovative methods are explored. However, what becomes very significant in this mileu in developing countries is the fact that the third sector is emerging very strong—in particular, social enterprises with their innovative strategies, processes and methods to provide access to energy and protect the environment from over-usage of natural resources. With this background, the current chapter, through a case study approach, attempts to explore how social entrepreneurs in India adopt better ways of providing energy to the excluded and marginalized social sections.

Barefoot College: Philosophy and Governance

Followed by two theoretical chapters, Chapter 3 analyses the governance structures of Barefoot College. The main focus here is on the historical and evolutionary processes that the College has undergone in order to shape its existence. It is argued that both internal and external hardships opened up scope for stakeholders to come up with innovative initiatives which helped them to be unique and transform their own living. A brief discussion about community participation and various methods adopted in order to promote the inclusion of the most excluded in the form of WISE approach are briefly discussed.

Barefoot as a Social Enterprise

Chapter 6 offers a crucial discussion about the finances of Barefoot College. It is argued that while the College has successfully built its sustainable orientation by creating various enterprises where communities are provided with employment, somehow in the recent past it has negated this successful track. The entrepreneurial and marketing strategy seems to be somewhat compromised where the College’s capacities to create necessary sustainable orientation is unlinked from its operation. While for the time being the College could continue to run on the corpus fund it has accumulated in case it fails to obtain additional funding, a more robust strategy might help it to achieve sustainable results in the long run. The chapter builds a tree diagram to understand the unique composition that exists at Barefoot College using the three pillar concept: organisational, social value and sustainable.

Implications of the Barefoot Approach on the Rural Poor

Chapter 5 offers an understanding of those who have benefited from the innovative experiments carried out by Barefoot College. It attempts to understand who the College recruits as part of its WISE existence. The chapter finds that the College has successfully transformed the lives of the benefited by bridging them with the mainstream. It is argued that there has been a constant struggle to achieve social equity and social inclusion among the masses. It is further found that the embeddedness and innovative experiments have helped them to achieve the impossible. Finally, this chapter attempts to understand how the existence of social entrepreneurship helped the communities to form social capital, from which those involved benefited.

Barefoot Approach and Its Practice

Chapter 4 deals with one of the two major tasks that Barefoot College undertakes - service delivery. In order to address the concerns of the poor and the deprived, the College undertakes various innovative experiments to provide them with the services. In addition to undertaking thorough discussion on the innovative experiments being undertaken, the chapter then moves on to discuss how the most excluded have benefited from those experiments. The detailed narrations and case studies presented offer a rich insight into the transformation. This chapter also understands how the philosophical ideology of Gandhi has helped the College to exist and create a unique composition which is highly respected by various stakeholders.

Social Entrepreneurship, Community Participation, and Embeddedness

Chapter 2 reviews the existing literature on community participation, embeddedness and structuration and builds on the various roles that social entrepreneurs adopt in the given context. The discussion on community participation opens an intensive debate on understanding how it creates contexts to promote the inclusion of the excluded by increasing their participation. The chapter also discusses how space as a physical instrument is used to restrict the participation of certain sections of the population in the mainstream. The chapter moves on to understand both structuration and embeddedness and opens the context to analyse how the social entrepreneur, as an agent, embeds in the local contexts, is initially influenced by the existing systems and culture, and in turn influences them through his/her active involvement in the structure.