
The concept of social entrepreneurship is gaining ground in Hong Kong as individuals and concern groups see the viability of running businesses whose prime purpose is to improve lives and make a direct contribution to the betterment of the community.
Of course, many multinationals and big-name brands feel entitled to make very similar claims, pointing to the jobs they create, taxes paid, sizeable donations made, and their role as upstanding corporate citizens. All that can be readily acknowledged, but the fact remains that the job of a standard finance-driven commercial organisation, whatever its size or sector, is to turn a profit for shareholders. Anything extra can go to good causes. In the world of social enterprise, the good cause is front and centre, with the business planned and investment structured specifically to make it happen.
“The basic point is that you start the venture because of a social purpose,” says Professor Alex Nicholls of Oxford University’s Said Business School, who was in Hong Kong recently at the invitation of the British Council to discuss aspects of social entrepreneurship with various local groups. “You don’t begin with a business opportunity, but with a social problem, and then design an organisation to address that problem more effectively than the status quo. The social entrepreneur says ‘I can do better’ or just starts by providing something which is not there, but should be.”

Professor Alex Nicholls of Oxford University’s Said Business School
Depending on the country and the community, the scope can be almost limitless. Among Nicholls’s favourite examples are the Fair Trade movement, which set out to ensure that farmers growing agricultural commodities like coffee receive reasonable compensation for their labour. It caught on successfully and end-users are now willing to pay a little more in the knowledge that the actual produces – not just the middleman or the retailer - will indeed benefit.