Social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is the attempt to draw upon business techniques to find solutions to social problems. This concept may be applied to a variety of organizations with different sizes, aims, and beliefs.

Conventional entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, but social entrepreneurs also take into account a positive return to society. Social entrepreneurship typically attempts to further broad social, cultural, and environmental goals often associated with the voluntary sector. At times, profit also may be a consideration for certain companies or other social enterprises.

Modern definition

There are continuing arguments over precisely who counts as a social entrepreneur. Thus far, there has been no consensus on the definition of social entrepreneurship, so many different sorts of fields and disciplines are associated with social entrepreneurship. Philanthropists, social activists, environmentalists, and other socially oriented practitioners are referred to as social entrepreneurs. The fact that social entrepreneurs fall under various career types is part of the reason it is difficult to determine who is truly a social entrepreneur. David Bornstein (author) has even used the term "social innovator" interchangeably with social entrepreneur, due to the creative, non-traditional strategies that many social entrepreneurs use. For a clearer definition of what social entrepreneurship entails, it is necessary to set the function of social entrepreneurship apart from other socially oriented activities and identify the boundaries within which social entrepreneurs operate. Some have advocated restricting the term to founders of organizations that primarily rely on earned income–meaning income earned directly from paying consumers. Others have extended this to include contracted work for public authorities, while still others include grants and donations.

Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely (Hebrew: דן אריאלי‎; born April 29, 1967) is the James B. Duke professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics. He teaches at Duke University and is the founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight and also the co-founder of BEworks. Ariely's talks on TED have been watched over 7.8 million times. He is the author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, both of which became New York Times best sellers, as well as The Honest Truth about Dishonesty.

Early life and family

Dan Ariely was born in New York City while his father was studying for an MBA degree at Columbia University. The family returned to Israel when he was three. He grew up in Ramat Hasharon. In his senior year of high school, he was active in Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed, an Israeli youth movement. While preparing a ktovet esh (fire inscription) for a traditional nighttime ceremony, the flammable materials he was mixing exploded, causing third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body. In his writings Ariely describes how that experience led to his research on "how to better deliver painful and unavoidable treatments to patients."