Description
This particular brief explanation in regard to mylinkface teaching social entrepreneurship lynn a. fish and ji hee kim.
MyLinkFace: Teaching
Social Entrepreneurship
Lynn A. Fish and Ji-Hee Kim
Lynn A. Fish is Professor of Management and Ji-Hee Kim is Asso-
ciate Professor of Management, Richard J. Wehle School of Busi-
ness, Canisius College
ABSTRACT
Teaching students’ ethically and socially responsible deci-
sion-making can be a daunting task for any instructor. This
paper outlines a social entrepreneurship course that is built
upon evolving best teaching practices in the area – reflection,
mentoring and active learning, and demonstration of learning
that occurs can be noted through a very successful outcome
of course, a new venture. MyLinkFace, where students reach
across international borders to deliver language services, demon-
strates all aspects of social entrepreneurship including social
innovation, financial sustainability, scalability, and social impact
being balanced with entrepreneurial education themes of oppor-
tunity recognition, business models, growth strategies, and finan-
cial performance. Through the new venture, entrepreneurship
students develop social entrepreneurial skills, education majors
24 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
improve their teaching skills, and beneficiaries develop their
conversational English language. Essentially, everyone wins!
Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.15239/j.brcacadje.2014.04.01.ja02
Literature Review
While business entrepreneurship changes the face of business, social
entrepreneurship challenges people to positively change society. While
there is no specific academic or practitioner definition, social entrepre-
neurship is the recognition of a social problem and the use of entre-
preneurial principles in creating, organizing, and managing a social
venture to achieve a desired social change (“The Social Entrepreneur Bill
Drayton", 2005). (When practiced in the global arena, it is called inter-
national social entrepreneurship.) Social entrepreneurship education
programs exist in universities worldwide and must meet the educational
needs of social entrepreneurs seeking business skills, an increased atten-
tion to social issues, and students’ desires for meaningful educations
(Miller, Wesley, & Williams, 2012). Social entrepreneurship is attracting
a growing interest in how to teach people the necessary social and
entrepreneurial skills (Howorth, Smith, & Parkinson, 2012). However,
consensus about the necessary competencies for these programs does
not exist (Miller et al., 2012).
Social entrepreneurship requires a skill set beyond those needed to
manage a traditional profit-centered organization – beyond assessment
of an organizations social mission or entrepreneurial skill to managing
social and economic conflict (Smith, Besharov, Wessels, & Chertok,
2012). Experts acknowledge that social and commercial entrepreneurs
face similar pressures from resource constraints, environmental uncer-
tainty, and an uncertain marketplace (Howorth et al., 2012). Social enter-
prise sustainability requires entrepreneurial and managerial skills in
such areas as: assessment of funding streams, profitability analysis for
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 25
reinvestment, resource management, idea generation and exploitation,
and market distribution and assessment analysis. Several educational
models recently emerged to address the necessary skill set for social
entrepreneurship. The objective here is not to review all of these models,
but to highlight this emerging skill set and then demonstrate how these
developed in a social entrepreneurship class.
To begin, social entrepreneurs must acquire leadership skills in
accepting, differentiating and integrating competing demands (Smith
et al., 2012). Social entrepreneurship involves accepting and creating a
vision that accepts both social and financial demands simultaneously
– and not as conflicting viewpoints. Differentiating requires recogni-
tion of unique contributions from both the financial and social areas
and recognizing the unique distinctions between them. Social entrepre-
neurs must balance the social mission with the commercial mission in
creation of a viable business strategy. Instructors need to create diver-
gent thinking exercises that foster skills to attend to novel distinctions
(Smith et al., 2012). Simultaneously, social entrepreneurs need to develop
integration skills that focus on creating ‘win-win’ situations between
the social and financial arenas. Integration requires identifying creative
synergies between contradictory elements with the goal of a produc-
tive outcome (Smith et al., 2012). Developing integrative options requires
complex thinking based upon developing decision-making skills towards
synergistic solutions and interpersonal skills that focus on building trust,
openness and cultural sensitivity (Smith et al., 2012). Instructors can use
transformational groups and exercises to foster interpersonal skills and
create an environment and understanding that develops skills to recog-
nize and manage conflicting views. Experts argue that developing these
skills depends upon curricula that allow students to learn from others,
create community, and manage conflict through adapting course struc-
tures and processes to facilitate this learning and not merely adding new
content to existing courses (Smith et al, 2012).
26 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
From an educational perspective, pedagogical themes include social
innovation, financial sustainability, scalability, and social impact being
balanced with entrepreneurial education themes of opportunity recog-
nition, business models, growth strategies, and financial performance,
respectively (Kickul, Janssen-Selvadurai, & Griffiths, 2012). Goals in
teaching social entrepreneurship include teaching students to identify
innovative solutions to social problems, developing a business model
for sustainability, inspiring others to embrace a vision and values, iden-
tifying multiple and varied sources of funding, identifying means of
scaling, timely implementation for social solution and measurement
of the social impact of the endeavor (Kickul et al., 2012). Instructors
– and their students – must learn to take advantage of the intra-
university resources and the social community resources toward accom-
plishing their goals. In today’s environment, public-private collaboration
is playing an increasingly more important role in new venture creation
and requires an in depth learning of collaborative habits, knowledge and
skills (Kickul et al., 2012).
With respect to scaling, students need to consider four dimensions
– impact, need, organization and timing - that outline the poten-
tial benefits, risks and costs of the potential venture (Bloom & Chat-
terji, 2009). Scaling a program may be viewed as a 4-step process for
deciding whether and how to scale by defining the social enterprise, its
scaling and replicability, opportunity assessment, evaluation of the social
enterprise’s readiness and formulation of a scaling-up strategy (Taylor,
Dees & Emerson, 2002).
Experts in teaching social entrepreneurship advise that the course
should include a preparation exercise followed by an experiential expe-
rience (Kickul et al., 2012). Similarly, social entrepreneurship may be
accomplished best through a collaborative experience with other profes-
sional disciplines and fields following the best practices taught through
social entrepreneurship (Kickul et al., 2012). Student learning assessment
needs to be formative, summative, and reflective in nature.
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 27
Other experts preach that teaching social entrepreneurs should be
social and not contextual learning, and in particular, skills in reflec-
tive thinking may be particularly beneficial to social entrepreneurs
(Howorth et al., 2012). Reflective thinking requires critical questioning
about assumptions and mental models that in the past may have been
taken for granted. Experts argue that building trust, familiarity and
psychological safety are important in developing social entrepreneurial
skills (Howorth et al., 2012). In one study, social and commercial entre-
preneurs appear to have more in common than differences (Howorth
et al., 2012). Both students benefit from reflective thinking, mentoring
and action learning sets along with practice through mutual engage-
ment with others in peer-to-peer learning, joint enterprise and infor-
mation sharing. Educators need to create environments that foster the
commonality and learning from both commercial and social entrepre-
neurial environments with a particular emphasis on practice and social
learning versus contextual learning.
Recent research highlights competencies that social entrepreneurship
educational environments appear to include learning to (Miller et al.,
2012):
• Qualitatively and quantitatively measure social outcomes, including
understanding social return on investment, blended value
accounting, social-costs accounting and other social measures;
• Develop sustainable, empowered problem-solving to address
society situations that are engrained in communities, governments
and infrastructures by developing process solutions that go beyond
mere solutions;
• Manage financial capital and social finance that delivers an
economic return and social dividend;
• Identify, evaluate and exploit opportunities;
• Create, evaluate the feasibility and implement a strategic business
plan;
• Be innovative and creative;
28 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
• Formulate a strategy that addresses value chains and business
models that serve the intended beneficiaries and generate financial
returns for the organization;
• Develop inter-personal abilities towards collaborative relationships
by networking and stakeholder management; and
• Communicate with all stakeholders including customers, suppliers,
beneficiaries and employees.
However, experts highlight the need for more attention in the social
entrepreneurship classroom on developing marketing and selling; a
sense of moral imperatives and ethics; critical thinking to challenge
traditional ways; leadership and team development; and social and inter-
personal skills (Miller et al., 2012). Recent research also highlights differ-
ences in social entrepreneurship education between the graduate and
undergraduate levels where graduate education appears to focus on
managing financial capital, measuring outcomes, and growing the orga-
nization, while undergraduate programs tend to focus on social problem
identification (Miller et al., 2012).
With these competencies and skills in mind, the social entrepreneur-
ship course, ENT314, and the social entrepreneurial venture, MyLink-
Face, which resulted from the curriculum are described.
Method: ENT314: Social Entrepreneurship
The junior-level, undergraduate elective is open to all students who
complete the pre-requisites; however, the course is mainly populated
by entrepreneurship and business students. Pre-requisites to ENT314
Social Entrepreneurship include MGT101 Introduction to Management
and MKT 201 Principles of Marketing (Entrepreneurship Section) or ENT
201 Introduction to Entrepreneurship and junior standing. In the spring
of 2010, ENT314, a junior-level elective for the entrepreneurship major
included 21 students. (Subsequently, 19 and 29 students took the course
in the spring of 2011 and 2012 respectively.) The practitioner-oriented
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 29
course focuses on innovative, value-driven organizations that have civic
or social missions and are typically associated with the not-for-profit
sector. The course goals are to teach students the role of the not-for-
profit sector in creating social wealth in the economy, to actively engage
students in institutional efforts to create a positive social impact, and to
engage students through mentorships with aspiring entrepreneurs while
preparing them for leadership roles in their communities. The specific
educational objectives are:
1. To examine the distinctive challenges and rewards of entre-
preneurship and management in creating and developing social
purpose organizations.
2. To develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for
responding creatively and effectively to the challenges.
3. To provide an appreciation of the relative strengths and weak-
nesses of different organizational forms in providing social goods
and services.
The course focus is on developing entrepreneurial and business skills
toward the creation and management of social enterprises. Through the
course, students develop a conceptual framework and techniques for
thinking strategically about innovation in the social sector. The course
uses the textbook, Social Entrepreneurship: A Modern Approach to Social
Value Creation by A. C. Brooks (2009). The course concentrates on the
seven modules (as outlined below) and the development of a written
business plan for a not-for-profit organization through a student team.
(Interested readers may request a syllabus from Dr. JiHee Kim.)
The seven modules, which assist students in developing the non-profit
business plan and interwoven into the chapters, are as follows:
• Module I. Undertaking the Social Entrepreneurship Process focuses
on critical issues an entrepreneur faces in creating and sustaining a
social purpose organization.
• Module II. Mobilizing Economic and Human Resources. Acquiring
capital and talent for a social enterprise, a key function of the
30 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
social entrepreneur, is the focus of this module. Particular emphasis
is given to innovative sources of financing, such as venture
philanthropy and the Internet.
• Module III. Achieving Social Objectives with Commercial Ventures
examines a number of creative approaches and organizational
structures used by for profit and nonprofit companies to address
social issues. The market place is used as the primary vehicle for
generating the resources needed for social betterment.
• Module IV. Crafting Alliances is becoming an increasingly integral
part of social enterprise strategy. This module examines the
opportunities and risks associated with building alliances between
and among nonprofit, business, and government organizations.
• Module V. Managing Growth explores the distinctive challenges
associated with the growing of social enterprises. For social
entrepreneurs who successfully make it through the start-up stage,
the next major challenge is getting bigger.
• Module VI. Measuring and Managing Performance deals with
perhaps the most complicated and distinguishing managerial
feature of social enterprises compared to commercial businesses.
• Module VII. Governing the Social Enterprise. This two-case module
will provide an opportunity to explore the challenges of governance
as a critical determinant of effectiveness.
A few points to note regarding the course and best teaching practices:
1) The course begins with each student giving a 1-minute vision,
value and self-reflection as a social entrepreneur. Thus, each
student starts the course through self-reflection, and by presenting
it, starts to build familiarity and peer-to-peer learning.
2) The schedule includes individual and group presentations. These
presentations build oral communication skills.
3) Brainstorming a new business idea and financial funding are based
upon a required entrepreneurship knowledge and process devel-
oped at the freshman level – “From Nothing to Something” (Kim
& Fish, 2010), which is used in the ENT314 course.
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 31
4) The current schedule includes a discussion for scaling of the
original venture, MyLinkFace, and group development of a new
venture. Through the current course, students address the scala-
bility issue as the students continue to keep MyLinkFace as a viable
business while also developing initiation and concept development
skills.
5) Students develop a strategic business plan through their group
work. Writing and presenting a strategic business plan is a skill
that is required throughout each of the entrepreneurship major
courses, but specific to this course, focuses on balancing the social
and commercial aspects to a business. In particular, the fact that
the final strategic plan is reviewed by both the instructor and an
outside social entrepreneur provides additional mentoring for the
student.
6) The course concludes with individual and group presentations
that include a self-reflection component. Each student reflects on
their learning through the course, and through their final presen-
tation, each student creatively presents their social entrepreneur-
ship learning.
The course is a blend of lectures, discussions and guest speakers.
Throughout the course, the selected cases highlight the diverse
economic, political, and cultural characteristics of social sector organi-
zations. To ensure relevancy and a practitioner orientation, the sessions
use case studies of social enterprises. These for profit and not-for-profit
entrepreneurs lead various types of social enterprises involved in a
wide range of social sector causes, encompassing education, health care,
economic development, youth services, social advocacy, and environ-
ment.
Student evaluation consists of class attendance and participation
(14%), an individual reading and presentation (3%), case and reading
assignments (9 total; 26%); a not-for-profit group project (43%) and
a final self-reflection presentation and evaluation (14%). By attending
each class and participating in the active dialog that encourages ethical
and social responsibility, students’ acquire critical thinking, commit-
32 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
ment, and leadership skills. The individual readings and final self-reflec-
tion included several social entrepreneurship topics including: what
is social entrepreneurship, myths about social entrepreneurship, the
creative process of social entrepreneurship, developing the social enter-
prise concept, social enterprise business planning, measuring social
value, earned income, donations and government income, fundraising
and marketing, and social entrepreneurship growth strategies. Students
must participate in the group activities outside of class as well and are
forewarned that these take extensive time and energy. Outside activ-
ities include researching non-profit and social sector’s organizations
typically completed through the Internet, developing the group’s busi-
ness plan, and raising seed money. Student’s participation is critical
to active learning and contributes to the entire class learning. Active
participation also puts the learner in an active mode, thus enhancing
learning. The cases and reading assignments test analytical thinking and
reflective knowledge of social entrepreneurship. As noted in the tenta-
tive schedule, students are expected to submit a chapter summary for
each chapter, case summaries, and progress summaries of the business
plan. The individual chapter presentation develops each student’s oral
communication and creativity skills as each student presents a 20-minute
presentation on the assigned chapter. The ‘brainstormed’ class devel-
oped, not-for-profit business project develops student’s written commu-
nication, analytical thinking, and creative problem-solving skills while
requiring them to develop innovative marketing strategies, integration,
and an entrepreneurial attitude and mindset. The outcome from the
project is a new business venture plan that requires viable research. The
group is expected to not only write about the project – but to develop
it! The business plan is graded by the instructor and an outside social
entrepreneur. The course culminates in group project presentations and
a final self-reflection presentation. The final exam covers the academic
learning from each of the chapters. Each student submits a reflection
about the business planning process, raising seed money and forming
the social entrepreneurship venture, in this case, MyLinkFace. Thus, the
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 33
course offers a participative pedagogy that is heavily influence by situ-
ated learning that encourages entrepreneurial ‘thinking outside of the
box’ and a balance between social and commercial goals.
Assurance of Learning: MyLinkFace
While assurance of learning can take many forms, the development
and continued sustainability of the new venture, MyLinkFace, is a clear
demonstration of students’ learning social entrepreneurship through
active participation. MyLinkFace is the brainchild of students in the 2010
ENT314 Social Entrepreneurship class. It is a student-initiated, student-
run, international, non-profit, social venture that links student teachers
in Buffalo, New York to students around the world with the goal of
teaching foreign-speaking students conversational English. MyLinkFace
delivers conversational English to students through the use of Skype,
and requires only a computer, web camera, and an Internet connection.
Through the ENT314 course, the students recognized that in the interna-
tional world, English is the primary language used to conduct business,
government, and education. They also noted that fluency is particularly
important in countries like South Korea where international business is
the backbone of the economy. ENT314 students through their research
found that in South Korea, Samsung, Hyundai, and Kia Motors, along
with telecommunications conglomerates and the Korean government,
are the driving force to enhance the English language skills of the Korean
people. Thus, students recognized the need to educate professionals in
conversational English.
Social entrepreneurship is particularly effective when other groups
are represented. Such is the case with MyLinkFace where business,
education and customers come together using Skype. The three key
groups involved in MyLinkFace are a management team, student
teachers and foreign students. The management team is comprised
of students that represent all business functions: accounting, finance,
34 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
human resource, operations, marketing and web design. The manage-
ment team developed and implemented a business plan. The team
continues strategic planning while acquiring practical experience in
running a business. For example, operations schedules student teachers
or web design develops the virtual interface. Students also engage in
writing business contracts, maintaining the social network for marketing
purposes, advertising, and writing job descriptions. Student teachers,
which mainly consist of education or English majors, are the backbone
of the operations system as student teachers must develop lesson plans
and deliver them to students throughout the world. Foreign students,
whether they are undergraduates, graduates or business professionals,
enter MyLinkFace with an understanding of the English grammar,
sentence structure and vocabulary; however, they lack the ability to
converse fluently and understand American idioms. In developing the
concept, students researched English as a Second Language (ESL) and
used various ESL textbooks currently available on the marketplace.
Current courses offered through MyLinkFace include one-on-one
conversational English lessons for business communications, English for
airline staff, English for hotel management and English for job inter-
views and employment. Students learn the proper way to introduce
themselves, suitable responses for customer service complaints, appro-
priate telephone etiquette, and how to prepare for and conduct meet-
ings (Browka, 2011). Each course includes a corresponding textbook,
produced by the student teacher.
Start-up issues include obtaining financial backing, marketing, and
time differences. Business starts-ups always require capital investment.
The students overcame this issue through fund-raisers and sponsorships.
Both the management team and student teachers receive minimum wage
for their efforts. Breaking into a new untested market with an untested
product is always a daunting and challenging task. Starting MyLinkFace
proved to be no different. Initially the students conceptualized reaching
out to elementary students; however, they were unable to break into this
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 35
market and modified the marketing strategy toward professionals and
universities. After a multitude of rejections, Pukyong National Univer-
sity was the first international client.
Students engaged in various fundraising efforts to initialize and
sustain the MyLinkFace effort. Initial seed money came from selling a
few products on campus (e.g. raffles and flowers), a raffle at a local NHL
hockey game, and fundraising at a local NFL event. Once the business
started, through various student efforts, a Korean sponsor (ICanSpeak,
Ltd.) came forward with both students and financial support.
The social impact measures include the number of customers served,
the number of employees and hours worked as members of MyLinkFace,
and the number of MyLinkFace employees that become ESL teachers
in other countries. In the spring of 2010, 38 customers participated in
the pilot program. As shown in Table 1, the ‘semester’ ranges from 2 to
3 months depending upon the situation, and teachers administer to an
average of 70 students that ranges from 64 to 94 clients per semester.
Customers include undergraduate and graduates students from several
top Korean educational institutions and professionals. 24 students partic-
ipate in either the management or teaching team over the typical 12-
week semester, for a total of 1728 hours each semester. The manage-
ment team consists of 13 members (Chief Operations Officer, human
resources, marketing, operations, finance/fundraising, accounting and
sales) that invest 6 hours a week for 12 weeks, for a total of 936 hours
per semester. The teaching team consists of 11 employees that average
4 hours per week with direct contact with the customers over the 12
weeks, or a total of 528 hours over the semester. The teaching team also
invests 2 hours per week in preparation and research & development,
adding another 264 hours per semester. Since 2010, 3 former MyLink-
Face teachers went on to become ESL teachers in other countries (Korea,
France and Columbia). Through pre- and post- tests, Korean student’s
English capabilities are tested. As MyLinkFace efforts expanded to local
refugees in the Buffalo area, the number of refugees in the local area
36 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
became part of the social measurement system. Currently, the number
of refugees provided for through MyLinkFace averages 30 per semester.
Currently, MyLinkFace is sustained through the ENT314 course.
MyLinkFace’s current strategy for sustainability and scalability is to
continue their social venture through provide sponsorships for students
and financial support, as well as a home-grown focus on refugees in the
Buffalo area.
Additional assurance of learning evidence exists in the annual evalu-
ations and assessment of the course. The summative assessment at the
end of the semester is based upon all relevant work noted in the student’s
final course grade. As noted in Table 2, since the spring of 2009, over 85%
of the students have exceeded the course learning goal.
Discussion
The ENT314 Social Entrepreneurship curriculum incorporates several
evolving best practices to develop a student’s social entrepreneurial
mindset and processes. Students learn more than just new content
through the course; they learn the processes to develop new social enter-
prises. For example, through the group projects, students learn from
others, create community and manage conflict through the processes
(Smith et al., 2012). By using a previous learned process (“From Nothing
to Something”(Kim & Fish, 2010)), entrepreneurship students build upon
previously acquired skills toward a social need. Through brainstorming
activities in the class, students identify innovative solutions to social
problems, develop a sustainable business model, vision and mission,
identify funding sources and scaling opportunities, implement the social
solution and measure the social impact, which are all important skills
for the social entrepreneur (Kickul et al., 2012). The processes devel-
oped in the course encourage synergistic solutions and through the
various presentations and initiation activities, build interpersonal skills
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 37
that encourage trust building, openness and cultural sensitivity, all key
practices in social entrepreneurship (Smith et al., 2012).
As experts note (Kickul et al., 2012), student assessment should be
formative, summative and reflective in nature as the ENT314 course
is. Of particular note, reflective thinking may be particularly benefi-
cial to social entrepreneurs (Howorth et al., 2012). Best practices in
learning social entrepreneurship include reflective exercises, mentoring
from outside speakers, and active learning through mutual engagement
with others in peer-to-peer learning, joint enterprise and information
sharing (Howorth et al., 2012), and are all included in ENT314.
Social entrepreneurship academic experts advise that an experiential
experience is critical to student learning (Kickul et al., 2012). MyLinkFace
is a clear demonstration of experiential learning. Social entrepreneurship
requires students to develop qualitative and quantitative measurement
of social outcomes, developing sustainable, empowered problem-solving
processes, manage financial capital and social finance that returns an
economic return and a social dividend, develop processes to identify,
explore and exploit opportunities, innovative and creative processes, and
strategy formulation all leading toward a viable strategic business plan
(Miller et al., 2012). One of the final course activities is to present the
business plan which is graded by both the instructor and an outside
social entrepreneur. Similarly, experts highlight the need for more atten-
tion in the social entrepreneurship classroom on developing marketing
and selling; a sense of moral imperatives and ethics; critical thinking to
challenge traditional ways; leadership and team development; and social
and interpersonal skills (Miller et al., 2012). Obviously, the MyLinkFace
venture demonstrates all of these outcomes.
Particularly important to any entrepreneurial venture is the contin-
uation of the entity beyond its initiation and scalability of the busi-
ness plan. Current ENT314 students wrestle with the issues surrounding
continued viability of the MyLinkFace organization – the impact, need,
organization and timing along with benefits, risks and costs (Bloom &
38 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
Chatterji, 2001). Through the course, the MyLinkFace strategy transi-
tioned from initial concept delivery to elementary students to a focus
toward collegiate students and professionals to a current strategy toward
local outreach activities. Through the sustainability exercises built into
ENT314, students develop processes to balance the scalability and
replication, opportunity assessment, enterprises’ readiness and scale-up
strategy, which are key issues that social entrepreneurs must deal with
(Taylor et al., 2002).
As demonstrated by the MyLinkFace venture, students learn integra-
tion skills that focus on creating ‘win-win’ situations between the social
and financial arenas (Smith et al., 2012) and may best be accomplished
through collaboration with other professional disciplines (Kickul et al,
2012). The students in 2010 ENT314 identified a potential solution to a
need to develop conversational English and through collaboration with
education and English students along with technical capabilities, devel-
oped a viable method to assist students throughout the world.
Conclusion
Teaching social entrepreneurship is an evolving field where best prac-
tices are beginning to emerge. The ENT314 course distinctly demon-
strates these best practices and student learning of social entrepre-
neurship. Students build upon previously acquired entrepreneurship
and business knowledge to develop their social entrepreneurial skills
through the course processes required for identification, collaboration,
integration, and reflection. Best practices of mentoring, active learning,
and mutual engagement with others (Howorth et al., 2012) are also
included in ENT314. The new venture, MyLinkFace, which is now in
its third year of existence, demonstrates the viability of the classroom
methods to develop a new concept through scaling.
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 39
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Web Appendix
A web appendix for this paper is available at:http://dx.doi.org/10.15239/j.brcacadje.2014.04.01.wa02
Citation Information
Fish, Lynn A. and Ji-Hee Kim. “MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepre-
neurship.” The BRC Academy Journal of Business 4, no. 1 (2014): 23-40.http://dx.doi.org/10.15239/j.brcacadje.2014.04.01.ja02
doc_836596181.pdf
This particular brief explanation in regard to mylinkface teaching social entrepreneurship lynn a. fish and ji hee kim.
MyLinkFace: Teaching
Social Entrepreneurship
Lynn A. Fish and Ji-Hee Kim
Lynn A. Fish is Professor of Management and Ji-Hee Kim is Asso-
ciate Professor of Management, Richard J. Wehle School of Busi-
ness, Canisius College
ABSTRACT
Teaching students’ ethically and socially responsible deci-
sion-making can be a daunting task for any instructor. This
paper outlines a social entrepreneurship course that is built
upon evolving best teaching practices in the area – reflection,
mentoring and active learning, and demonstration of learning
that occurs can be noted through a very successful outcome
of course, a new venture. MyLinkFace, where students reach
across international borders to deliver language services, demon-
strates all aspects of social entrepreneurship including social
innovation, financial sustainability, scalability, and social impact
being balanced with entrepreneurial education themes of oppor-
tunity recognition, business models, growth strategies, and finan-
cial performance. Through the new venture, entrepreneurship
students develop social entrepreneurial skills, education majors
24 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
improve their teaching skills, and beneficiaries develop their
conversational English language. Essentially, everyone wins!
Keywords: Social Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.15239/j.brcacadje.2014.04.01.ja02
Literature Review
While business entrepreneurship changes the face of business, social
entrepreneurship challenges people to positively change society. While
there is no specific academic or practitioner definition, social entrepre-
neurship is the recognition of a social problem and the use of entre-
preneurial principles in creating, organizing, and managing a social
venture to achieve a desired social change (“The Social Entrepreneur Bill
Drayton", 2005). (When practiced in the global arena, it is called inter-
national social entrepreneurship.) Social entrepreneurship education
programs exist in universities worldwide and must meet the educational
needs of social entrepreneurs seeking business skills, an increased atten-
tion to social issues, and students’ desires for meaningful educations
(Miller, Wesley, & Williams, 2012). Social entrepreneurship is attracting
a growing interest in how to teach people the necessary social and
entrepreneurial skills (Howorth, Smith, & Parkinson, 2012). However,
consensus about the necessary competencies for these programs does
not exist (Miller et al., 2012).
Social entrepreneurship requires a skill set beyond those needed to
manage a traditional profit-centered organization – beyond assessment
of an organizations social mission or entrepreneurial skill to managing
social and economic conflict (Smith, Besharov, Wessels, & Chertok,
2012). Experts acknowledge that social and commercial entrepreneurs
face similar pressures from resource constraints, environmental uncer-
tainty, and an uncertain marketplace (Howorth et al., 2012). Social enter-
prise sustainability requires entrepreneurial and managerial skills in
such areas as: assessment of funding streams, profitability analysis for
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 25
reinvestment, resource management, idea generation and exploitation,
and market distribution and assessment analysis. Several educational
models recently emerged to address the necessary skill set for social
entrepreneurship. The objective here is not to review all of these models,
but to highlight this emerging skill set and then demonstrate how these
developed in a social entrepreneurship class.
To begin, social entrepreneurs must acquire leadership skills in
accepting, differentiating and integrating competing demands (Smith
et al., 2012). Social entrepreneurship involves accepting and creating a
vision that accepts both social and financial demands simultaneously
– and not as conflicting viewpoints. Differentiating requires recogni-
tion of unique contributions from both the financial and social areas
and recognizing the unique distinctions between them. Social entrepre-
neurs must balance the social mission with the commercial mission in
creation of a viable business strategy. Instructors need to create diver-
gent thinking exercises that foster skills to attend to novel distinctions
(Smith et al., 2012). Simultaneously, social entrepreneurs need to develop
integration skills that focus on creating ‘win-win’ situations between
the social and financial arenas. Integration requires identifying creative
synergies between contradictory elements with the goal of a produc-
tive outcome (Smith et al., 2012). Developing integrative options requires
complex thinking based upon developing decision-making skills towards
synergistic solutions and interpersonal skills that focus on building trust,
openness and cultural sensitivity (Smith et al., 2012). Instructors can use
transformational groups and exercises to foster interpersonal skills and
create an environment and understanding that develops skills to recog-
nize and manage conflicting views. Experts argue that developing these
skills depends upon curricula that allow students to learn from others,
create community, and manage conflict through adapting course struc-
tures and processes to facilitate this learning and not merely adding new
content to existing courses (Smith et al, 2012).
26 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
From an educational perspective, pedagogical themes include social
innovation, financial sustainability, scalability, and social impact being
balanced with entrepreneurial education themes of opportunity recog-
nition, business models, growth strategies, and financial performance,
respectively (Kickul, Janssen-Selvadurai, & Griffiths, 2012). Goals in
teaching social entrepreneurship include teaching students to identify
innovative solutions to social problems, developing a business model
for sustainability, inspiring others to embrace a vision and values, iden-
tifying multiple and varied sources of funding, identifying means of
scaling, timely implementation for social solution and measurement
of the social impact of the endeavor (Kickul et al., 2012). Instructors
– and their students – must learn to take advantage of the intra-
university resources and the social community resources toward accom-
plishing their goals. In today’s environment, public-private collaboration
is playing an increasingly more important role in new venture creation
and requires an in depth learning of collaborative habits, knowledge and
skills (Kickul et al., 2012).
With respect to scaling, students need to consider four dimensions
– impact, need, organization and timing - that outline the poten-
tial benefits, risks and costs of the potential venture (Bloom & Chat-
terji, 2009). Scaling a program may be viewed as a 4-step process for
deciding whether and how to scale by defining the social enterprise, its
scaling and replicability, opportunity assessment, evaluation of the social
enterprise’s readiness and formulation of a scaling-up strategy (Taylor,
Dees & Emerson, 2002).
Experts in teaching social entrepreneurship advise that the course
should include a preparation exercise followed by an experiential expe-
rience (Kickul et al., 2012). Similarly, social entrepreneurship may be
accomplished best through a collaborative experience with other profes-
sional disciplines and fields following the best practices taught through
social entrepreneurship (Kickul et al., 2012). Student learning assessment
needs to be formative, summative, and reflective in nature.
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 27
Other experts preach that teaching social entrepreneurs should be
social and not contextual learning, and in particular, skills in reflec-
tive thinking may be particularly beneficial to social entrepreneurs
(Howorth et al., 2012). Reflective thinking requires critical questioning
about assumptions and mental models that in the past may have been
taken for granted. Experts argue that building trust, familiarity and
psychological safety are important in developing social entrepreneurial
skills (Howorth et al., 2012). In one study, social and commercial entre-
preneurs appear to have more in common than differences (Howorth
et al., 2012). Both students benefit from reflective thinking, mentoring
and action learning sets along with practice through mutual engage-
ment with others in peer-to-peer learning, joint enterprise and infor-
mation sharing. Educators need to create environments that foster the
commonality and learning from both commercial and social entrepre-
neurial environments with a particular emphasis on practice and social
learning versus contextual learning.
Recent research highlights competencies that social entrepreneurship
educational environments appear to include learning to (Miller et al.,
2012):
• Qualitatively and quantitatively measure social outcomes, including
understanding social return on investment, blended value
accounting, social-costs accounting and other social measures;
• Develop sustainable, empowered problem-solving to address
society situations that are engrained in communities, governments
and infrastructures by developing process solutions that go beyond
mere solutions;
• Manage financial capital and social finance that delivers an
economic return and social dividend;
• Identify, evaluate and exploit opportunities;
• Create, evaluate the feasibility and implement a strategic business
plan;
• Be innovative and creative;
28 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
• Formulate a strategy that addresses value chains and business
models that serve the intended beneficiaries and generate financial
returns for the organization;
• Develop inter-personal abilities towards collaborative relationships
by networking and stakeholder management; and
• Communicate with all stakeholders including customers, suppliers,
beneficiaries and employees.
However, experts highlight the need for more attention in the social
entrepreneurship classroom on developing marketing and selling; a
sense of moral imperatives and ethics; critical thinking to challenge
traditional ways; leadership and team development; and social and inter-
personal skills (Miller et al., 2012). Recent research also highlights differ-
ences in social entrepreneurship education between the graduate and
undergraduate levels where graduate education appears to focus on
managing financial capital, measuring outcomes, and growing the orga-
nization, while undergraduate programs tend to focus on social problem
identification (Miller et al., 2012).
With these competencies and skills in mind, the social entrepreneur-
ship course, ENT314, and the social entrepreneurial venture, MyLink-
Face, which resulted from the curriculum are described.
Method: ENT314: Social Entrepreneurship
The junior-level, undergraduate elective is open to all students who
complete the pre-requisites; however, the course is mainly populated
by entrepreneurship and business students. Pre-requisites to ENT314
Social Entrepreneurship include MGT101 Introduction to Management
and MKT 201 Principles of Marketing (Entrepreneurship Section) or ENT
201 Introduction to Entrepreneurship and junior standing. In the spring
of 2010, ENT314, a junior-level elective for the entrepreneurship major
included 21 students. (Subsequently, 19 and 29 students took the course
in the spring of 2011 and 2012 respectively.) The practitioner-oriented
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 29
course focuses on innovative, value-driven organizations that have civic
or social missions and are typically associated with the not-for-profit
sector. The course goals are to teach students the role of the not-for-
profit sector in creating social wealth in the economy, to actively engage
students in institutional efforts to create a positive social impact, and to
engage students through mentorships with aspiring entrepreneurs while
preparing them for leadership roles in their communities. The specific
educational objectives are:
1. To examine the distinctive challenges and rewards of entre-
preneurship and management in creating and developing social
purpose organizations.
2. To develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for
responding creatively and effectively to the challenges.
3. To provide an appreciation of the relative strengths and weak-
nesses of different organizational forms in providing social goods
and services.
The course focus is on developing entrepreneurial and business skills
toward the creation and management of social enterprises. Through the
course, students develop a conceptual framework and techniques for
thinking strategically about innovation in the social sector. The course
uses the textbook, Social Entrepreneurship: A Modern Approach to Social
Value Creation by A. C. Brooks (2009). The course concentrates on the
seven modules (as outlined below) and the development of a written
business plan for a not-for-profit organization through a student team.
(Interested readers may request a syllabus from Dr. JiHee Kim.)
The seven modules, which assist students in developing the non-profit
business plan and interwoven into the chapters, are as follows:
• Module I. Undertaking the Social Entrepreneurship Process focuses
on critical issues an entrepreneur faces in creating and sustaining a
social purpose organization.
• Module II. Mobilizing Economic and Human Resources. Acquiring
capital and talent for a social enterprise, a key function of the
30 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
social entrepreneur, is the focus of this module. Particular emphasis
is given to innovative sources of financing, such as venture
philanthropy and the Internet.
• Module III. Achieving Social Objectives with Commercial Ventures
examines a number of creative approaches and organizational
structures used by for profit and nonprofit companies to address
social issues. The market place is used as the primary vehicle for
generating the resources needed for social betterment.
• Module IV. Crafting Alliances is becoming an increasingly integral
part of social enterprise strategy. This module examines the
opportunities and risks associated with building alliances between
and among nonprofit, business, and government organizations.
• Module V. Managing Growth explores the distinctive challenges
associated with the growing of social enterprises. For social
entrepreneurs who successfully make it through the start-up stage,
the next major challenge is getting bigger.
• Module VI. Measuring and Managing Performance deals with
perhaps the most complicated and distinguishing managerial
feature of social enterprises compared to commercial businesses.
• Module VII. Governing the Social Enterprise. This two-case module
will provide an opportunity to explore the challenges of governance
as a critical determinant of effectiveness.
A few points to note regarding the course and best teaching practices:
1) The course begins with each student giving a 1-minute vision,
value and self-reflection as a social entrepreneur. Thus, each
student starts the course through self-reflection, and by presenting
it, starts to build familiarity and peer-to-peer learning.
2) The schedule includes individual and group presentations. These
presentations build oral communication skills.
3) Brainstorming a new business idea and financial funding are based
upon a required entrepreneurship knowledge and process devel-
oped at the freshman level – “From Nothing to Something” (Kim
& Fish, 2010), which is used in the ENT314 course.
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 31
4) The current schedule includes a discussion for scaling of the
original venture, MyLinkFace, and group development of a new
venture. Through the current course, students address the scala-
bility issue as the students continue to keep MyLinkFace as a viable
business while also developing initiation and concept development
skills.
5) Students develop a strategic business plan through their group
work. Writing and presenting a strategic business plan is a skill
that is required throughout each of the entrepreneurship major
courses, but specific to this course, focuses on balancing the social
and commercial aspects to a business. In particular, the fact that
the final strategic plan is reviewed by both the instructor and an
outside social entrepreneur provides additional mentoring for the
student.
6) The course concludes with individual and group presentations
that include a self-reflection component. Each student reflects on
their learning through the course, and through their final presen-
tation, each student creatively presents their social entrepreneur-
ship learning.
The course is a blend of lectures, discussions and guest speakers.
Throughout the course, the selected cases highlight the diverse
economic, political, and cultural characteristics of social sector organi-
zations. To ensure relevancy and a practitioner orientation, the sessions
use case studies of social enterprises. These for profit and not-for-profit
entrepreneurs lead various types of social enterprises involved in a
wide range of social sector causes, encompassing education, health care,
economic development, youth services, social advocacy, and environ-
ment.
Student evaluation consists of class attendance and participation
(14%), an individual reading and presentation (3%), case and reading
assignments (9 total; 26%); a not-for-profit group project (43%) and
a final self-reflection presentation and evaluation (14%). By attending
each class and participating in the active dialog that encourages ethical
and social responsibility, students’ acquire critical thinking, commit-
32 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
ment, and leadership skills. The individual readings and final self-reflec-
tion included several social entrepreneurship topics including: what
is social entrepreneurship, myths about social entrepreneurship, the
creative process of social entrepreneurship, developing the social enter-
prise concept, social enterprise business planning, measuring social
value, earned income, donations and government income, fundraising
and marketing, and social entrepreneurship growth strategies. Students
must participate in the group activities outside of class as well and are
forewarned that these take extensive time and energy. Outside activ-
ities include researching non-profit and social sector’s organizations
typically completed through the Internet, developing the group’s busi-
ness plan, and raising seed money. Student’s participation is critical
to active learning and contributes to the entire class learning. Active
participation also puts the learner in an active mode, thus enhancing
learning. The cases and reading assignments test analytical thinking and
reflective knowledge of social entrepreneurship. As noted in the tenta-
tive schedule, students are expected to submit a chapter summary for
each chapter, case summaries, and progress summaries of the business
plan. The individual chapter presentation develops each student’s oral
communication and creativity skills as each student presents a 20-minute
presentation on the assigned chapter. The ‘brainstormed’ class devel-
oped, not-for-profit business project develops student’s written commu-
nication, analytical thinking, and creative problem-solving skills while
requiring them to develop innovative marketing strategies, integration,
and an entrepreneurial attitude and mindset. The outcome from the
project is a new business venture plan that requires viable research. The
group is expected to not only write about the project – but to develop
it! The business plan is graded by the instructor and an outside social
entrepreneur. The course culminates in group project presentations and
a final self-reflection presentation. The final exam covers the academic
learning from each of the chapters. Each student submits a reflection
about the business planning process, raising seed money and forming
the social entrepreneurship venture, in this case, MyLinkFace. Thus, the
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 33
course offers a participative pedagogy that is heavily influence by situ-
ated learning that encourages entrepreneurial ‘thinking outside of the
box’ and a balance between social and commercial goals.
Assurance of Learning: MyLinkFace
While assurance of learning can take many forms, the development
and continued sustainability of the new venture, MyLinkFace, is a clear
demonstration of students’ learning social entrepreneurship through
active participation. MyLinkFace is the brainchild of students in the 2010
ENT314 Social Entrepreneurship class. It is a student-initiated, student-
run, international, non-profit, social venture that links student teachers
in Buffalo, New York to students around the world with the goal of
teaching foreign-speaking students conversational English. MyLinkFace
delivers conversational English to students through the use of Skype,
and requires only a computer, web camera, and an Internet connection.
Through the ENT314 course, the students recognized that in the interna-
tional world, English is the primary language used to conduct business,
government, and education. They also noted that fluency is particularly
important in countries like South Korea where international business is
the backbone of the economy. ENT314 students through their research
found that in South Korea, Samsung, Hyundai, and Kia Motors, along
with telecommunications conglomerates and the Korean government,
are the driving force to enhance the English language skills of the Korean
people. Thus, students recognized the need to educate professionals in
conversational English.
Social entrepreneurship is particularly effective when other groups
are represented. Such is the case with MyLinkFace where business,
education and customers come together using Skype. The three key
groups involved in MyLinkFace are a management team, student
teachers and foreign students. The management team is comprised
of students that represent all business functions: accounting, finance,
34 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
human resource, operations, marketing and web design. The manage-
ment team developed and implemented a business plan. The team
continues strategic planning while acquiring practical experience in
running a business. For example, operations schedules student teachers
or web design develops the virtual interface. Students also engage in
writing business contracts, maintaining the social network for marketing
purposes, advertising, and writing job descriptions. Student teachers,
which mainly consist of education or English majors, are the backbone
of the operations system as student teachers must develop lesson plans
and deliver them to students throughout the world. Foreign students,
whether they are undergraduates, graduates or business professionals,
enter MyLinkFace with an understanding of the English grammar,
sentence structure and vocabulary; however, they lack the ability to
converse fluently and understand American idioms. In developing the
concept, students researched English as a Second Language (ESL) and
used various ESL textbooks currently available on the marketplace.
Current courses offered through MyLinkFace include one-on-one
conversational English lessons for business communications, English for
airline staff, English for hotel management and English for job inter-
views and employment. Students learn the proper way to introduce
themselves, suitable responses for customer service complaints, appro-
priate telephone etiquette, and how to prepare for and conduct meet-
ings (Browka, 2011). Each course includes a corresponding textbook,
produced by the student teacher.
Start-up issues include obtaining financial backing, marketing, and
time differences. Business starts-ups always require capital investment.
The students overcame this issue through fund-raisers and sponsorships.
Both the management team and student teachers receive minimum wage
for their efforts. Breaking into a new untested market with an untested
product is always a daunting and challenging task. Starting MyLinkFace
proved to be no different. Initially the students conceptualized reaching
out to elementary students; however, they were unable to break into this
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 35
market and modified the marketing strategy toward professionals and
universities. After a multitude of rejections, Pukyong National Univer-
sity was the first international client.
Students engaged in various fundraising efforts to initialize and
sustain the MyLinkFace effort. Initial seed money came from selling a
few products on campus (e.g. raffles and flowers), a raffle at a local NHL
hockey game, and fundraising at a local NFL event. Once the business
started, through various student efforts, a Korean sponsor (ICanSpeak,
Ltd.) came forward with both students and financial support.
The social impact measures include the number of customers served,
the number of employees and hours worked as members of MyLinkFace,
and the number of MyLinkFace employees that become ESL teachers
in other countries. In the spring of 2010, 38 customers participated in
the pilot program. As shown in Table 1, the ‘semester’ ranges from 2 to
3 months depending upon the situation, and teachers administer to an
average of 70 students that ranges from 64 to 94 clients per semester.
Customers include undergraduate and graduates students from several
top Korean educational institutions and professionals. 24 students partic-
ipate in either the management or teaching team over the typical 12-
week semester, for a total of 1728 hours each semester. The manage-
ment team consists of 13 members (Chief Operations Officer, human
resources, marketing, operations, finance/fundraising, accounting and
sales) that invest 6 hours a week for 12 weeks, for a total of 936 hours
per semester. The teaching team consists of 11 employees that average
4 hours per week with direct contact with the customers over the 12
weeks, or a total of 528 hours over the semester. The teaching team also
invests 2 hours per week in preparation and research & development,
adding another 264 hours per semester. Since 2010, 3 former MyLink-
Face teachers went on to become ESL teachers in other countries (Korea,
France and Columbia). Through pre- and post- tests, Korean student’s
English capabilities are tested. As MyLinkFace efforts expanded to local
refugees in the Buffalo area, the number of refugees in the local area
36 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
became part of the social measurement system. Currently, the number
of refugees provided for through MyLinkFace averages 30 per semester.
Currently, MyLinkFace is sustained through the ENT314 course.
MyLinkFace’s current strategy for sustainability and scalability is to
continue their social venture through provide sponsorships for students
and financial support, as well as a home-grown focus on refugees in the
Buffalo area.
Additional assurance of learning evidence exists in the annual evalu-
ations and assessment of the course. The summative assessment at the
end of the semester is based upon all relevant work noted in the student’s
final course grade. As noted in Table 2, since the spring of 2009, over 85%
of the students have exceeded the course learning goal.
Discussion
The ENT314 Social Entrepreneurship curriculum incorporates several
evolving best practices to develop a student’s social entrepreneurial
mindset and processes. Students learn more than just new content
through the course; they learn the processes to develop new social enter-
prises. For example, through the group projects, students learn from
others, create community and manage conflict through the processes
(Smith et al., 2012). By using a previous learned process (“From Nothing
to Something”(Kim & Fish, 2010)), entrepreneurship students build upon
previously acquired skills toward a social need. Through brainstorming
activities in the class, students identify innovative solutions to social
problems, develop a sustainable business model, vision and mission,
identify funding sources and scaling opportunities, implement the social
solution and measure the social impact, which are all important skills
for the social entrepreneur (Kickul et al., 2012). The processes devel-
oped in the course encourage synergistic solutions and through the
various presentations and initiation activities, build interpersonal skills
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 37
that encourage trust building, openness and cultural sensitivity, all key
practices in social entrepreneurship (Smith et al., 2012).
As experts note (Kickul et al., 2012), student assessment should be
formative, summative and reflective in nature as the ENT314 course
is. Of particular note, reflective thinking may be particularly benefi-
cial to social entrepreneurs (Howorth et al., 2012). Best practices in
learning social entrepreneurship include reflective exercises, mentoring
from outside speakers, and active learning through mutual engagement
with others in peer-to-peer learning, joint enterprise and information
sharing (Howorth et al., 2012), and are all included in ENT314.
Social entrepreneurship academic experts advise that an experiential
experience is critical to student learning (Kickul et al., 2012). MyLinkFace
is a clear demonstration of experiential learning. Social entrepreneurship
requires students to develop qualitative and quantitative measurement
of social outcomes, developing sustainable, empowered problem-solving
processes, manage financial capital and social finance that returns an
economic return and a social dividend, develop processes to identify,
explore and exploit opportunities, innovative and creative processes, and
strategy formulation all leading toward a viable strategic business plan
(Miller et al., 2012). One of the final course activities is to present the
business plan which is graded by both the instructor and an outside
social entrepreneur. Similarly, experts highlight the need for more atten-
tion in the social entrepreneurship classroom on developing marketing
and selling; a sense of moral imperatives and ethics; critical thinking to
challenge traditional ways; leadership and team development; and social
and interpersonal skills (Miller et al., 2012). Obviously, the MyLinkFace
venture demonstrates all of these outcomes.
Particularly important to any entrepreneurial venture is the contin-
uation of the entity beyond its initiation and scalability of the busi-
ness plan. Current ENT314 students wrestle with the issues surrounding
continued viability of the MyLinkFace organization – the impact, need,
organization and timing along with benefits, risks and costs (Bloom &
38 The BRC Academy Journal of Education Vol. 4, No. 1
Chatterji, 2001). Through the course, the MyLinkFace strategy transi-
tioned from initial concept delivery to elementary students to a focus
toward collegiate students and professionals to a current strategy toward
local outreach activities. Through the sustainability exercises built into
ENT314, students develop processes to balance the scalability and
replication, opportunity assessment, enterprises’ readiness and scale-up
strategy, which are key issues that social entrepreneurs must deal with
(Taylor et al., 2002).
As demonstrated by the MyLinkFace venture, students learn integra-
tion skills that focus on creating ‘win-win’ situations between the social
and financial arenas (Smith et al., 2012) and may best be accomplished
through collaboration with other professional disciplines (Kickul et al,
2012). The students in 2010 ENT314 identified a potential solution to a
need to develop conversational English and through collaboration with
education and English students along with technical capabilities, devel-
oped a viable method to assist students throughout the world.
Conclusion
Teaching social entrepreneurship is an evolving field where best prac-
tices are beginning to emerge. The ENT314 course distinctly demon-
strates these best practices and student learning of social entrepre-
neurship. Students build upon previously acquired entrepreneurship
and business knowledge to develop their social entrepreneurial skills
through the course processes required for identification, collaboration,
integration, and reflection. Best practices of mentoring, active learning,
and mutual engagement with others (Howorth et al., 2012) are also
included in ENT314. The new venture, MyLinkFace, which is now in
its third year of existence, demonstrates the viability of the classroom
methods to develop a new concept through scaling.
MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 39
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Web Appendix
A web appendix for this paper is available at:http://dx.doi.org/10.15239/j.brcacadje.2014.04.01.wa02
Citation Information
Fish, Lynn A. and Ji-Hee Kim. “MyLinkFace: Teaching Social Entrepre-
neurship.” The BRC Academy Journal of Business 4, no. 1 (2014): 23-40.http://dx.doi.org/10.15239/j.brcacadje.2014.04.01.ja02
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