A qualitative study on social entrepreneurship: technology-based social ventures and humanitarian entrepreneurial mindset

Seen as an effective approach for sustainable development of disenfranchised communities, spurring legislation initiatives and private investment, social entrepreneurship has gained the attention of many economies across the globe. Social entrepreneurship arises as an effective practice for solution development for access to education, healthcare, water, food, or electricity. In the United States, several university programs are tackling the development of technology-based social ventures. While there has been growth in assessing social entrepreneurship education, little exchange of what works in a technology-based social entrepreneurship program occurred.

To contribute to the body of empirical knowledge of what works in a program dedicated to technology-based solutions which have the potential to stimulate global improvements, the researcher performed a qualitative analysis of the Penn State HESE program’s ENGR 451 course on social entrepreneurship. The purpose of this research was to gather some baseline data about three areas connected to developing culturally fit technology-based ventures and the humanitarian entrepreneurial mindset developed throughout this process. The paper reported on a grounded theory study using in-depth interviews with the 49 students enrolled in the ENGR 451 course on social entrepreneurship, 70% studying engineering. The research analyzed two areas related to engineering entrepreneurship: the entrepreneurial mindset generated by participation in the course and the process of developing culturally fit technology-based social ventures with particular interest in task-role distribution, idea generation, and design-thinking stages. The current study is part of a larger qualitative study exploring how and what students in the HESE program learn about social entrepreneurship and how this learning influences their intent to be part of or to start a social venture.

The findings have potential impact across social entrepreneurship program design, are intended to inform educators of social entrepreneurs about social entrepreneurship program design and the humanitarian entrepreneurial mindset.