Even as social entrepreneurial activities have risen significantly around the world, academia continues to be consumed by debates on the exact definition of social entrepreneurship. Different schools of thought have since emerged and a reconciliation of definitions has yet to be achieved (Cukier et al., 2009; Brock, Steinder & Kim, 2008). In fact, it has become routine for scholars to begin their academic writings by qualifying that a consensual definition of social entrepreneurship does not exist (Nicholls, 2010), and that definitions must be adopted and used with caution (Zahra et al., 2009).
Given the conundrum associated with scholarly definitions of social entrepreneurship, this study aims to address the confusion emanating from academic discourse by seeking clarifications from an alternative institution: the mass media. The mass media play a significant role in determining how the public perceives various social issues and topics such as social entrepreneurship. As such, the public’s understanding of social entrepreneurship is likely framed or influenced by the topical information disseminated by the mass media. Thus, an analysis of the relevant stories carried by the mass media would yield invaluable insights on how the public perceives social entrepreneurship.
This exploratory study content analyzes the stories on social entrepreneurship that were published by the print media in India and Singapore over a five-year period, from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2011. From the Factiva database, a total of 652 print media stories on social entrepreneurship published in India are retrieved. Likewise, a total of 137 print media stories on social entrepreneurship published in Singapore are retrieved from the Factiva database.
The choice of India and Singapore as the contexts of this study allows for a comparative analysis between a developing Asian country and a developed Asian country. Specifically, the first research question addressed by this study is as follows: In terms of the stories published, how differently is social entrepreneurship framed by the respective print media of a developing Asian country (i.e., India) and a developed Asian country (i.e., Singapore)? The second research question that this study addresses is as follows: How different are the print media’s conceptualizations of social entrepreneurship from academia’s conceptualizations of social entrepreneurship?
Using the grounded theory approach, content analysis of the print media stories yields the following five propositions:
- Government policies seem to drive social entrepreneurship in a developed Asian country, while educational institutions seem to drive social entrepreneurship in a developing Asian country.
- Social entrepreneurship in a developed Asian country seems to focus on providing employment opportunities to the marginalized in society, while social entrepreneurship in a developing Asian country seems to focus on improving the living conditions of the rural poor.
- The print media seem to portray the social innovation and revenue generation motives of social entrepreneurship as convergent ideas; by the contrast, academia often portrays the social innovation and revenue generation motives of social entrepreneurship as divergent ideas.
- The print media do not seem to differentiate among the terms, social enterprise, social business, and social venture; by contrast, scholars often differentiate among the terms, social enterprise, social business, and social venture.
- The print media seem to view youth as potential social entrepreneurs; by contrast, academia often views potential social entrepreneurs as a rare breed of leaders.
The first two propositions address the first research question (i.e., regarding differences between the context of a developing Asian country and that of a developed Asian country). And the last three propositions answer the second research question (i.e., regarding the conceptual differences between academia and the print media).