1. Mindset, Social Entrepreneurship,
Culture and Sustainability
2017.7.6
Game Changer Institute
Yutaka Tanabe (Japan)
y.tanabe@gamechanger-inst.org
6th EMES International Research Conference on Social Enterprise 2017
the Université Catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Session: F06 Profiles and trajectories of social enterprise leaders
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2. Summary of this presentation
2
Present
(As-Is)
Future
(To-Be)
Theory of Change (ToC) designs the Trajectory
Sustainability
Mindset
Social
Entrepreneur-
ship
Culture

3. Index
● Introduction
● Research Question
● Literature Review
● Method
● Results
● Conclusion
● References
3

4. Introduction
● Can social enterprise help overcome the current crises?
● If it would be a possibility to make breakthrough by social entrepreneurship, how?
● What is the definition of the mindest of social entrepreneur?
● This article aims to examine the relationship between mindset, social
entrepreneurship, culture and sustainability.
● We hope this article to contribute practitioners and researchers to be inspired for
generalizing.
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5. Research Question
● What is the relationship between mindset, social entrepreneurship, culture and
sustainability?
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6. Literature Review
Mindset of Social Entrepreneur not defined yet
● Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka, argues “What is needed now is changing the
world’s mindset.”
● Beugré (2016) defines mindset as follows; "A mindset is a particular way of seeing
the world and things around us. In entrepreneurship, a mindset is a particular way of
looking at opportunities and how business should (or should not) be conducted."
However, Beugré also argues “this characterization of the entrepreneurial mindset
was discussed with respect to commercial entrepreneurship, it could easily apply to
social entrepreneurship.”
● To date, few studies exist that examine the definition of the mindset of social
entrepreneurship.
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7. Literature Review
Mindset of Entrepreneur defined
McGrath & MacMillan (2000) states the mindset of habitual entrepreneurs as follows.
1. They seek new opportunities.
2. They pursue opportunities with enormous discipline.
3. They pursue only the very best opportunities and avoid exhausting themselves and
their organizations by chasing after every option.
4. They focus on execution - specifically, adaptive execution.
5. They engage the energies of everyone in their domain.
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8. Literature Review
The Five Stages of Social Entrepreneurship defined
● Tanabe (2016) suggested a framework of the five stages of social entrepreneruship.
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Systemic
Problem*
Individualized
Activity
Organized
Activity
Socialized
Activity
Systemic
Change
*Systemic problem is a social problem derived from overall social system; the root cause of
inequality, human insecurity, or crisis of global sustainability.

9. Literature Review
Culture
● If people whose mindset shifted by social enterprise perceive and act collectively,
then it would be a new culture for well-being.
● Schein (2010) defines culture as follows. “The culture of a group can now be defined
as a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solved its
problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well
enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the
correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” Shane also
states that “Culture is a stabilizer, a conservative force, and a way of making things
meaningful and predictable.”
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10. Literature Review
Theory of Change (ToC)
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Present
Future
R
oadm
ap
ToC is
“Backbone” of
a Social
Enterprise.

11. Literature Review
Theory of Change (ToC)
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Vision, Long-term
Outcome
Ultimate Outcome
Accountability Ceiling
Preconditions /
Outcome
Preconditions /
Outcome
Preconditions /
Outcome
Impact
Assupmtion
A
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43
Preconditions /
Outcome
Assumption
B
How do you achieve
Ultimate Outcome?
How do you achieve
Vision, Long-term
Outcome?
How do you achieve
Preconditions /
Outcome?
www.theoryofchange.org

12. Method
● Firstly, we define the mindset for social entrepreneurship.
● Second, we propose a new framework to articulate the relationship between
mindset, social entrepreneurship, culture, and sustainability. Most importantly,
Theory of Change (ToC) is needed to support the framework. ToC connects
mindset, social entrepreneurship, culture, and sustainability as a backbone and
design the trajectory.
● Then, we conduct case study of three social enterprises of Teach For America
(USA), Roots of Empathy (Canada), Kamonohashi Project (Japan, Cambodia and
India).
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13. Method
Definition of the Mindset of Social Entrepreneurship
1. Social Entrepreneurs have strong ethics and empathy for marginalized people or
creatures to pursue sustainability.
2. They understand social problems are complex and chaos.
3. They have obsession to find the “missing piece” to solve systemic problem.
4. They apply systems thinking to tackle systemic problems.
5. They build relationship with multistakeholders to create collecitive impact.
6. They pursue the triple bottom line - social value, environmental value, and economic
value.
7. They strive to achieve systemic change.
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14. Method
● We propose a framework for Mindset, Social Entreprneruship, Culture and Sustainability.
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Mindset
Social
Entrepreneur-
ship
Culture Sustainability
Theory of Change (ToC)
Systemic
Problem
Individualiz
ed
Activity
Organized
Activity
Socialized
Activity
Systemic
Change

15. Teach For America
(TFA, the US)
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- ToC: “First, children need exceptional teachers, high-quality
schools, and a broader set of supports that give them access to
the educational opportunities they deserve today. Second,
education systems need massive, lasting change so that
equitable educational opportunities are consistently offered to
every student. ”
- Mindset: TFA proposes “Transformational Change, Team,
Leadership, Respect and Humility, and Diversity”
- Social Entrepreneurship: TFA started from systemic problem
and begins to achieve systemic change.
- Culture: TFA created context for top talent to go and teach in
low-income areas, and the alumni to be involved in education.
- Sustainability: Some marginalized students whose role model
are TFA teachers go to college; after graduation they return
communities as new TFA teachers to pursue sustainability of
communities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=YOMqFObeCJ4&t=11m28s

16. - ToC: “ROE develops social and emotional capacity in children, and
this profoundly changes them for life.”
- Mindset: “Empathy – the ability to understand how others feel – is at
the core of our humanity.”
- Social Entrepreneurship: ROE’s systemic problem is “The Empathy
Deficit.” “The absence of empathy underlies war, genocide, neglect,
racism, abuse and marginalization of all kinds.” ROE’s program in
schools scaled up in 10 countries including Canada, the US, the UK
Barack Obama in his term and Justin Trudeau now stress empathy to
respect diversity.
- Culture: “The net impact of building levels of empathy is a more
caring, peaceful, and civil society.“ “A framework for peace requires an
architecture of empathy.”
- Sustainability: “The [SDGs] Campaign has had a partnership with
Bridges of Understanding since June 2016 to promote empathy and
understanding around the refugee crisis, co-develop educational and
new media activities and to increase awareness and action around the
SDGs.”
Roots of Empathy
(ROE, Canada)
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https://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=e4cgG9Thxs8&t=1
4m23s

17. Kamonohashi
Project
(Kamo, Japan)
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- ToC: Kamo reduces demand of human trafficking by strengthening
police and reduce supply of girls from rural areas by building
community factory to create employment for girls and/or its parents
in Cambodia and India.
- Mindset: Kamo’s member have obsession with Kamo’s mission to
realize a world where no child are sold. They share strong discipline
with their mission.
- Social Entrepreneurship: They started Kamo to see systemic problem
of human trafficking in Cambodia. They created social businesses
and membership system to support Kamo. Now their ToC worked out
successfully in Cambodia, achieved systemic change of ending
human trafficking in Cambodia. Kamo moved on to India.
- Culture: ToC facilitates Kamo to organize collective impact in India to
tackle human trafficking. Also, products from community factory in
Cambodia are sold in Japan to use market force.
- Sustainability: Kamo’s social enterprise contirbutes to SDGs.
https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=eEcsSRhUMBQ

18. Results
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● Three cases of Teach For America (TFA, the US), Roots of Empathy (ROE,
Canada), Kamonohashi Project (Kamo, Japan) show the meaningful relationship
between Mindset, Social Entrepreneurship, Culture and Sustainability.
● Social enterprises can create culture for systemic change.
● Theory of Change (ToC) works in their cases to design a trajectory to lead the social
enterprises from the present to the future to achieve sustainability.

19. Conclusion
● This article examines the relationship between mindset, social entrepreneurship,
culture and sustainability.
● However, there are limitations. In this article we covered only three cases although
they are leading social enterprises in the world. The framework here is qualitative
analysis. Many new areas for future research exist.
● We hope this article will help practitioners to improve management issues of a social
enterprise and to progress by the framework easily. Also, it would be our honor if
this article will contribute researchers to consider sustainability through social
entrepreneurship.
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20. References
● Ashoka (2016). Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of wellbeing.
● Beugré, C. (2016). Social Entrepreneurship: Managing the Creation of Social Value. Routledge.
● Drayton, B. (2013). Growing Up - The New Paradigm and The Jujitsu of Introducing a New Mindset.
● Bornstein, D., & Davis, S. (2010). Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know Teaching
Notes.
● Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
● McGrath, R. G., & MacMillan, I. C. (2000). The entrepreneurial mindset: Strategies for continuously
creating opportunity in an age of uncertainty (Vol. 284). Harvard Business Press.
● Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.
● Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Smith, V., Zaidman-Zait, A., & Hertzman, C. (2012). Promoting children’s prosocial
behaviors in school: Impact of the “Roots of Empathy” program on the social and emotional
competence of school-aged children. School Mental Health, 4(1), 1-21.
● Sen, P. (2007). Ashoka's big idea: Transforming the world through social entrepreneurship. Futures,
39(5), 534-553.
● Social Innovation Generation http://www.sigeneration.ca/home/resources/roots-of-empathy/
● Sustainable Development Goals Action Campaign https://sdgactioncampaign.org/category/sdgs/
● Tanabe, Y. (2016). The five stages of social entrepreneurship.
● Taplin, D. H., Clark, H., Collins, E., & Colby, D. C. (2013). Theory of Change.
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