Research Article: 2020 Vol: 24 Issue: 1
This article delivers a comprehensive understanding of social entrepreneurship in social venture with the lens of Hartmut Rosa’s resonance theory by analysing the intense conflicts inside an elite Chinese social organization in its poverty reduction practice. From the individual aspect to the organization’s structural aspect, the author argues that the three dimensional perspective of social entrepreneurship would provide good insights on the establishment of the axes of resonance when it encounters obstructions due to the continuing alienation. Humanity venture which is defined as the creation of shared inner value system in an organization in the three dimensional perspective would become the institutional condition to facilitate the transformation of alienation and resonance on social entrepreneurship in the coexistence of social improvement region (SIEV) and social transformation region (STEV) in one organization.
Social Entrepreneurship, Social Venture, Resonance, Alienation, Poverty Reduction, Harmut Rosa, China.
The development of research on social entrepreneurship is from the discussion on its concept to the dimensions and further to the typology studies (Dees, 2001; Sullivan-Mort et al., 2003; Nicholls & Cho 2008; Neck et al., 2009), and meanwhile, the research on poverty reduction through entrepreneurship has drawn more attention in both research and practice (Ahlstrom, 2015; Bloom et al., 2013; McCloskey, 2017; Sutter et al., 2019; Si et al., 2019). How we see social entrepreneurship being reflected and changed in the area of poverty reduction would be worth to discuss in depth.
Serve for China (SFC) is a social organization registered at Ministry of Civil Affairs of China. It has committed to work on poverty reduction through rural entrepreneurship and social innovation by annually awarding its two-year fellowship to a highly select group of top university Chinese graduates, training and sending them to poor villages. It strives to educate future leaders for promoting economic equality and making long-lasting social impact in the underdeveloped regions in China. With the fellows from top universities worldwide (Harvard, Columbia, Brown, UCLA, Oxford, Cambridge etc.), an elite founder who had worked in poor villages for over five years and a good relationship with the governments from counties to provincial level, SFC developed fast in the past years when it started its fellowship program in 2016. However, intense conflicts inside this social organization have drawn much criticism on its management.
Rosa (2013, 2016)’s theory of resonance would provide a new and profound perspective on analysing SFC’s conflicts on the matter of social entrepreneurship, and the author tries to argue that Lundstrøm & Zhou(2014)’s three dimensional perspective of social entrepreneurship could facilitate the establishment of the axes of resonance when it encounters obstructions due to the continuing alienation.
Perdo & McLean (2006) have discussed what makes social entrepreneurship. They broaden and deepen the explanation from the “minimalist” sense of entrepreneur’s definition (Barber, 1998) to the “business methods” approach as “entrepreneurial element in social entrepreneurship is linked closely with borrowing from the outlook and methods of marketdriven enterprise” (Perdo & McLean, 2006), and enlarge to a more developed sense indicating that “a satisfactory definitions of the entrepreneurship component of social entrepreneurship” should be balanced with imperfection or unsuccessful notions (Perdo & McLean, 2006), as Tan et al. (2003) mentioned.
Scholars try to identify and define characteristics of social entrepreneurs. Generally, social entrepreneurs are considered as entrepreneurs who carry social missions (Dees, 2001; Martin & Osberg, 2007). They share many characteristics with commercial entrepreneurs such as hard-working, vitality, persistence, innovativeness the recognition and relentless pursuit of new opportunities to resolve needs, etc. (Gopinathan, 2010), but the main differences between them are rooted in the nature of opportunities and missions (Austin et al., 2006). In this sense, market failure could be an obstacle for the effective operation of commercial entrepreneurs, but for social entrepreneurs, they shall identify the opportunities and create social value. They focus on social issues, and never put fortune-making as the core standard (Dees, 2001). Meanwhile, they motivate the followers’ passion by promoting social value not only economic ones. Mort, Weerawardena & Carnegie (2003) develop a model of social entrepreneurship, they state.
“Conceptualises social entrepreneurship as a multidimensional contract involving the expression of entrepreneurial virtuous behaviour to achieve the social mission, a coherent unity of purpose and action in the face of moral complexity, the ability to recognize social value-creating opportunities and key decision-making characteristics of innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking (Sullivan Mort, et al., 2003)”.
As for the question on what makes social entrepreneurship social, a large body of literature agree that social entrepreneurs are driven by social goals (Mair & Marti, 2009; Dees, 1998, Shaw & Carter 2007). Peredo & McLean (2006) indicate the “disagreement takes place over the location social goals must have in the purpose of the entrepreneur or his/her undertaking”. They discuss the range of social entrepreneurship, in which place of social goals and role of commercial exchange are considered as the key elements. This range reflects inclusive and extended definitions of social entrepreneurship. As Light (2008) explains that the inclusive definitions allow “more individuals, ideas, opportunities, and organizations into the tent”, in contrast with the more exclusive definition by Martin & Osberg (2007) which included fewer of those elements. Perrini (2006) identifies the limited view and extended view of social entrepreneurship. The limited view takes social entrepreneurial venture as enhanced versions of NPOs, however extended one considers this to be a new study field, as Perrini (2006) puts it,
“Only those innovators who are able to actively contribute to social change with creativity and innovation, typical of the classical entrepreneurial process, can be called social entrepreneurs, regardless of their specific organizational form (for-profit or nonprofit)”.
Drawing from a range of social entrepreneurship scholars, there are two schools of thought related to the development of social entrepreneurship (Dees & Anderson, 2006). The social enterprise school of thought have considered organizations that support social missions using earned income represent social entrepreneurship, while the social innovation school have focused more on how to address social problems and needs with innovative ways. The intersection of the two schools could be a research focus as Dees & Anderson (2006) suggest. Swanson & Zhang (2010) identify it as enterprising social innovations, they quote from Dees & Anderson (2006)’s description, “carrying out innovations that blend methods from the worlds of business and philanthropy to create social value that is sustainable and has the potential for large-scale impact”. Lundstrøm et al. (2014) also support this concept and define social venture as the entrepreneurship process initiated and founded by social entrepreneurs pursuing social objectives to create social value as the missions. They believe the final result of social venture would be social enterprise, including social business and NPOs adopting business methods. Zhao (2018) argues that social entrepreneurship should be put into the core position of the definition of social enterprise, and he proposes to add abilities elements and guarantee elements of social entrepreneurship into the existing definitions of social enterprise which he criticizes the social elements and business elements have been overly emphasized.
Zhao (2018)’s summary on the elements of social entrepreneurship includes some other scholars’ views on understanding the complexity and diversity of social entrepreneurship (Thompson, 2002; Hockerts, 2006; Weerawardena & Sullivan-Mort, 2006; Nicholas & Cho, 2008). Swanson & Zhang (2010) propose the Social Entrepreneurship Zone building on the extended (Perrini, 2006) and inclusive (Light, 2008) perspectives of social entrepreneurship. This construct intends to “position social entrepreneurship as a function and of the intended approaches to make social change and the degree of business practices applied to implement these intentions; and to avoid positioning it based on legal organizational forms” (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). It positions the social entrepreneurship zone by the vertical axis showing the levels of business practices organizations apply to support their social change agendas, as well as the horizontal axis scaling the degree of organizational planning for social change form none to taking direct action for social transformation (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). Swanson & Zhang (2010) identify the concept and differences between social improvement region (SIEVs’ home) and social transformation region (STEVs’ home). In their definition, social entrepreneurs of SIEVs “initiate and operate these organizations to, in part, apply sustainable business practices to support social change” (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). SIEVs could be an organization making donations strategically for the support of social change and providing social agencies assistance with needed expertise into their social change activities (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). One thing needs to be noted for SIEVs is that social responsibility does not equal social entrepreneurship because these Non-SIEVs do not aspire to implement social change (Neck et al., 2009; Swanson & Zhang, 2010). On the other hand, “STEVs are initiated by entrepreneurial individuals or groups who want to transform social conditions through their organizations…these individuals or groups take direct action toward initiating social change through applying business concepts” (Swanson & Zhang, 2010).
In the research field of social entrepreneurship and social venture, Lundstrøm & Zhou (2014) propose a three dimensional perspective. They point out that social venture is an ecologic whole by business venture, humanity venture and social venture, and the study of social venture must apply in the dual logic of social and entrepreneurial aspects. However, the key element of this perspective is the humanity venture which is defined as the creation of shared inner value system in an organization. The outer performance of humanity venture would affect the public recognition of the organization as well as the recruitment of potential employees (Lundstrom & Zhou). In another article regarding the strategic focus of public policy, Lundstrøm & Zhou (2014) argue there are fewer policies to encourage the humanity venture when compared to business venture and social venture.
Existing poverty research theory traditionally more focus on financial aid and other basic poverty reduction methods. In recent years, researchers started to generate new approaches in this area, entrepreneurship as an effective measure facilitates the link between economic growth and poverty reduction (Bloom et al., 2013, McCloskey, 2017, Si et al., 2019). In a wide sense, Si et al. (2019) summarize the definition of entrepreneurship “in terms of situations in which new goods, services, raw materials, markets and organizing methods can be introduced through the formation of new means, ends, or means-ends relationships” and see it as “encompassing radical change” on improving the poor’s social standing through improved social entrepreneurship (Battilana, Leca & Boxenbaum, 2009; Rindova et al., 2009, Si et al., 2019).
Si et al. (2019) look through a list of significant poverty literature that’s selected from top-tier journals and have an overview of five main perspectives on poverty reduction through entrepreneurship. Remediation is the perspective that generally focuses on the resources, and it “sees poverty as driven by scarce resources such as a lack of seed capital or other physical assets” (Si et al., 2019). McCloskey (2010, 2017) points out that the capital accumulation and provision could not prove the lasting advantages to an economy and its firms and citizens in history. Another perspective which centres more on reform other than resources and capital investment refers as reform perspective. It assumes that institutional voids and other social issues noticeably cause the poverty. Rodrik et al. (2004) claim that institutions matter a great deal in terms of economic growth, and Acemoglu & Robinson (2012) further analyse a productive institutional regime generally encourages innovation and entrepreneurship. The third one is social and plight perspective. This perspective suggests solving specific difficulties and removing onerous restrictions to help the poor get out of plight could be “an effective, individual or community level solution” (Si et al., 2019). Learning and change perspective comes after social and plight perspective, which centers on poor’s learning mindset and behavior change. Some scholars (Dweck, 2007; Si et al., 2015) mention the key for this perspective is to allow trial and error learning, while entrepreneurship would be encouraged during the process and learning innovation is more strengthened rather than failure. Last but not least, is the subsistence and innovation entrepreneurship? Si et al. (2019) explain the subsistence entrepreneurship as “ventures in settings of poverty in which a new venture offers little in terms of the potential to significantly improve the entrepreneur’s life or that of the entrepreneur’s family and subsistence entrepreneurs engage in entrepreneurial activities out of necessity”.
According to the Untied Nation (UN) Millennium Development Goals Report 2015, China has contributed more than 70% of the world’s poverty reduction in recent years (Si et al., 2015). Jin & Han (2014) analyse three significant changes in concept of poverty reduction and development in contemporary China on the central government’s level. First, the guiding principle changes from the idea of rescue to the idea of combining development and relief, and marco strategy changes from the idea of economic development to the idea of overall development. Finally, the specific implementation concept changes from one-way dominance to the interactive participation. The Outline for Development-oriented Poverty Reduction for China’s Rural Areas (2011-2020) marks the above changes, announcing that China will eliminate absolute poverty nationwide by 2020, which is criticized by Si et al. (2019) for that the goal neglects the nature of poverty standards that is “changeable over time, not in a static and constant case”. In 2011, Chinese central government decided to drastically raise the poverty line to 2300 yuan (2010 constant prices) in terms of the per capita net income of peasants, which is very closed to the extreme poverty line (1.90 USD per day) defined by World Bank (in 2011 dollars). According to the material for the press conference of the State Council Information Office, the new poverty line will have made 128 million people eligible for government antipoverty subsides by the end of 2011, which accounts for 13.4% of the rural population.
In this background, especially for the entrepreneurship’s role in poverty reduction has drawn more attention in both research and practice, as well as the significant changes of the guiding principle, strategy and the specific implementation towards poverty reduction on Chinese government’s level, Serve for China (SFC) as an innovative social organization committed to the work of rural poverty reduction through entrepreneurship by a group of elite youth, could be a very special and representative practice in contemporary China. Meanwhile, on the organizational level, SFC has its advantages. Both of the founders are Yale graduates, and one of them, Qin Yuefei, has worked at two remote villages as a “College student village official” in Hunan Province for more than five years. He received many national awards due to his village working experience and accomplishments on local development. Qin and his elite team had attracted a number of top university graduates to apply for SFC's fellowship, and the enrolment rate was extremely low which made the fellowship program highly competitive. Additionally, SFC had developed a good relationship with governments from counties to provincial level. SFC's fellows would obtain official titles as assistants to the village chief. Qin also officially reported to the State Council about SFC’s practices in 25 poor villages in Hunan province and Shandong province and has been trying to make a positive impact on the related policy-making in the background of "Rural Revitalization” and “college students go to the countryside” in China.
Rosa (2003, 2013, 2016, 2018) has described social dynamics in late-modern societies (i.e. approximately since the 1980s). His research theme is “the good life”, for which he analyses social acceleration from the perspective of critical theory. Rosa (2016) thinks the disadvantages of such society lead to new forms of alienation, and the possible solution, could be the pursuit of social relations full of “resonance”. This connection “resonance” is defined as “a mode of relating to the world in which the subject feels touched, moved or addressed by the people, places, objects, etc. he or she encounters” (Rosa, 2018). In the process, the subject and the relating world are having their ways to interact with each other, and keep their own voices not to be occupied and dominated by the other. Zhen (2018) further explains that the subject and the relating world would not consistently resonate, however, if institutional conditions are made to help the subject and the relating world to have more opportunities to generate harmonious resonance, thus the subject could get more support from the relating world for his/her selfactualization. This kind of institutional conditions is Honneth’s recognition (Zhen, 2018).
Rosa (2018) puts different resonant spaces into the “axes of resonance”, along which are the forms of individuals’ two-way relationships. The horizontal axe describes a subject’s resonate form with the surroundings, which includes family, friendships, political system and etc. The vertical axe is “existential”, describing the resonate form between one’s own existence and nature, and even beyond nature, such as religion, universe, art and history etc. The third kind of resonate form is in diagonal axe, which describes the connection between an individual and the material world, such as specific tools and school’s education. The reversed relationship to resonance is called “alienation”, which is indifferent, disregarding for the other and ignoring the subjects in silence (Rosa, 2016). In contrast to Rahel Jaeggi’s definition, in which alienation is a relation of Relationless, Rosa (2016) argues resonance is a relation of relationness. Alienation and resonance are not opposed to each other. Since resonance means that the subject and the relating world respond with their own voices, they do not necessarily respond to each other at the beginning. In this sense, alienation is there for a prerequisite for resonance. On the other hand, over-resonance will eventually lead to quarrels, and even totalitarian or mutual destruction (Zhen, 2018). Thus, after resonance reach to a certain degree, it is not bad to calm down and return to alienation. A sound world relationship leading towards a good life should be a world in which dialectical transformation of resonance and alienation continues (Rosa, 2016). If there are problems in the world relationship, then the problem lies not in the existence of alienation, but for the establishment of the axes of resonance encounters obstructions due to the continuing alienation.
What is it to hinder the establishment of the axes of resonance in late-modern society?
Rosa (2018) points out that it is logic of increase caused by escalatory acceleration, and driving force of the high-speed society is the “logic of competition” (Rosa, 2018). In this background, why high-speed society would result in the continuing alienation of breaking the axes of resonance? What is the relationship among acceleration, alienation and resonance? Rosa (2013) has answered the above questions; his argument and analysis provide a new and profound perspective to understand the conflicts in Serve for China (SFC), as well as the struggling of those young elites.
Alienation in Serve for China (SFC)
SFC recruited a group of Chinese young elites who graduated from top universities worldwide, and trained them intensively for a week then allocated them to different villages of a national poverty county in small teams with 2-3 members each. After these fellows’ one-month independent industry research in their assigned villages, they proposed and initiated their own projects by setting up Farmers Specialized Cooperatives with locals, trying to help with the poverty reduction through entrepreneurship. As the founders and mangers of those cooperatives, they did not earn any money from the business except for the monthly service subsides paid by SFC, and the profit was for the locals who joined the cooperatives or in some cases, reinvested to the business. Therefore in this sense, the fellows were doing the social venture in those poor areas which made them social entrepreneurs in such context.
Since 2016, SFC had sent two groups of fellows (69 people in total) to 25 villages in a national poverty county in Hunan Province, and till the end of 2017, 12 rural cooperatives had been established by those fellows, including 6 main industries-crop farming, livestock breeding, processing of agricultural products, rural tourism, handicrafts and a training program for local youth (social service). Most fellows were leading their cooperatives and doing the poverty reduction work in the learning and change perspective, which centres on poor’s learning mindset and behaviour change (Si et al., 2019). The focus of SFC’s marketing was the touching and encouraging stories on how some fellows had changed the mindset and behavior of poor villagers through entrepreneurship, and of course help them gain more revenue. Meanwhile, social and plight perspective was also reflected in their social venture. The preliminary research and indoor research were expected to find out the specific difficulties and help fellows design feasible business projects for effectively removing burdensome restrictions. However, during the operation of those entrepreneurial projects, many fellows gradually found themselves facing the severe difficulties on the effective communication with the villagers, necessary knowledge of managing cooperatives and sufficient money to conduct projects.
The key issue for the above difficulties is the conflict between the core values of certain poverty reduction perspectives through entrepreneurship with the strict time norms resulting from the logic of competition in late-modern society. As mentioned before, the key for the learning and changing perspective is to allow trial and error learning, while entrepreneurship would be encouraged during the process and learning innovation is more strengthened rather than failure (Dweck, 2007; Sims, 2013; Si et al., 2019), and social and plight perspective takes effects based on identifying specific difficulties of the poor people in that area. However, the fellows were assigned to those villages which they were socially or even culturally unfamiliar with, and were requested to complete an overall research in just one month, then come up with a feasible business proposal to help with the local economy. Each fellow’s service period would be two years, which means they were under the huge pressure to build up a sustaining local farmer specialized cooperative within the time moreover, at the different stages of their entrepreneurial projects, they would be asked to receive interviews from the local and national media, as well as constantly contribute touching and inspiring stories to SFC PR division as powerful and convincing materials for the fund-raising purpose of the organization. As young elites, they are trained to strictly meet with the time norms like Rosa (2013) states, the way modern society meets the needs of cooperation, regulation and synchronization is through the strict implementation of time norms, the rules of schedules and deadlines, the power of temporary notice and immediateness, as well as the urgent satisfaction and response. Rosa (2013) further points out, this norm, as other social or cultural norms we have known, has an overwhelming influence on the production of “guilty subjects”. Once they failed any expectation or fell behind their schedules, neither themselves nor the surroundings would forgive them, as Rosa (2013) says, modern society creates the guilty subjects, but without any compassion and forgiveness. Under such conditions, those fellows had to try the very best to catch up with the schedule. They had to do more things which they originally did not intend to when they joined SFC. One fellow spoke out for her peers when she finally quit SFC that she felt very uncomfortable to exaggerate what they have done and what social impact they have made to the local people. She said they had to accompany different government officials, investors and journalists to tour around their villages and cooperatives, being a shining “poster boy” or “poster girl” of SFC had been taking up too much of their time so they were not able to contribute to the social venture itself. This fellow even wrote an article expressing how sorry she felt for the poor villagers she worked with, for that she did not bring the real changes for them but only made some unsuccessful trials. Such statement has well reflected their sense of alienation. Rosa (2013) points out that whenever we are voluntary to do something, but it also violates our “true will”, we may feel alienated. The time norms have undermined the core of modern society’s commitment to reflection and autonomy.
On the other hand, SFC’s following reform pushed the conflicts with its fellows to an extreme. In the April of 2018, SFC made some big changes on the operation. All the projects were requested to present at a road show judged by 6 representatives from different venture capital corporations. Those projects passed the evaluation would have more financial and business support from venture capital corporations. SFC stated that the decision depends on how the project would empower poor villagers and create sustainable revenues. After the announcement of the reform, 16 fellows of 2017-2019 quit from SFC, and after the road show held in May, 11 projects (24 fellows) did not pass the evaluation. Only 2 projects (6 fellows) passed. Even though there was a second chance for presentation, fellows started questioning about the reform, some of them claimed they were expelled by the commercial capital. Many fellows were confused about the nature of social entrepreneurship, criticizing why SFC put the commercial capital into such a crucial position, and even adopted their opinions as standard in the poverty-reduction entrepreneurial projects. Bases on the comments from the 6 representatives, it could be seen that they emphasized much on resources, and their remediation perspective did not match those fellows’ entrepreneurial concepts in poverty reduction. This kind of conflicts demonstrate that creativity, subjectivity and passion are no longer for the autonomy of the old “modernity”, but to enhance the competitiveness (Rosa, 2013), and the logic of escalatory acceleration and logic of competition have already invaded the nature of social entrepreneurship, causing the alienation of elements of social entrepreneurship.
Does Resonance Correspond to the Three-dimensional Perspective of Social Entrepreneurship?
Not only in the individual’s aspect, has alienation also happened in the organization’s aspect, starting with SFC’s structure.
SFC’s structure was mainly divided into two parts, one is called the “Frontline”, which means those fellows who worked in the villages running the independent cooperatives; the other is called “Backline”, which refers to other divisions (public relations, fund-raising, finance and fellow recruitment) of the organization. “Backline” was supposed to provide support for “Frontline”, such as the management training for the fellows, monthly subsidies for the fellows, and marketing/branding events for the fellows and the projects. According to inclusive and extended definitions of social entrepreneurship, SFC perfectly stayed in the social entrepreneurship zone. However, in author’s opinion, the special part is that SFC was covering two regions in the social entrepreneurship zone (Swanson & Zhang, 2010) at the same timesocial improvement region (SIEVs’ home) and social transformation region (STEVs’ home). As explained in other parts of this article, social entrepreneurs of SIEVs “initiate and operate these organizations to, in part, apply sustainable business practices to support social change” (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). In SFC, the “Backline” played the role as SIEV, different divisions worked together to support the fellows’ social entrepreneurial ventures, for example, to raise money for the fellows’ monthly subsidies, to bridge the resources among the government, capitals and fellows, and to provide business management skills training courses (cooperated with some other professional training institutes and consulting firms) etc., while the “Frontline” played the role as STEV, which are “initiated by entrepreneurial individuals or groups who want to transform social conditions through their organizations…these individuals or groups take direct action toward initiating social change through applying business concepts” (Swanson & Zhang, 2010).
The conflicts inside SFC could be regarded as the alienation of social entrepreneurship by the coexistence of SIEV and STEV in one organization. Rosa (2013) argues that if our relationship with time and space, action, experience and interactive partners are alienated, it is difficult for us to avoid deep self-alienation. As discussed before, the fellows (frontline) had selfalienation in their relationship with the organization (backline), and the social entrepreneurship also got alienated during the process. Meanwhile, the reform initiated by the backline intensified its conflicts with the fellows, and this action made SFC deviate itself from the nature of social entrepreneurial venture, continuing to break the vertical and diagonal axes of resonance. By the end of August, only 8 fellows stayed at SFC. On Aug 18, a group of fellows who left SFC posted an article online called Seven Questions for Qin Yuefei. In which, they have criticized SFC’s financial transparency, Qin’s integrity as well as the backline’s profession on support of their poverty reduction projects. This post has made a huge impact by spreading fast nationwide in a week. More the 100,000 people have viewed it. As a star social organization, SFC has been going through the biggest public crisis since it was founded in 2014.
Does Lundstrom & Zhou (2014)’s three dimensional perspective of social entrepreneurship provide any insights on the establishment of the axes of resonance when it encounters obstructions due to the continuing alienation? In which, social venture is an ecologic whole by business venture, humanity venture and social venture. The key element of this perspective is the humanity venture which is defined as the creation of shared inner value system in an organization (Lundstrom & Zhou, 2014). As Rosa (2013) suggests that if institutional conditions are made to help the subject and the relating world to have more opportunities to generate harmonious resonance, thus the subject could get more support from the relating world for his/her self-actualization. In this case, the social entrepreneurship of backline and frontline in the social entrepreneurial venture had over-resonated at some extend. As over-resonance would eventually lead to quarrels, and even totalitarian or mutual destruction (Rosa, 2013; Zhen, 2018), humanity venture would become the institutional condition to facilitate the transformation of alienation and resonance on the matter of social entrepreneurship in the coexistence of SIEV and STEV in SFC, when business venture and social venture had been overly strengthened. The creation of shared inner value system would bridge the two regions in Social Entrepreneurship Zone, encouraging a dual movement of affection and emotion, which helps deal with the continuing alienation of fellows and the organization. As Rosa (2013) points out, if we lose the order of stable directional and important things, then our self-relationship would be in danger and disturbed. Alienation with the world and alienation with the self are not two separate things, but two aspects of the same thing.
In this article, I have analysed the conflicts inside a Chinese elite social organization in its poverty reduction practice with the lens of resonance theory (Rosa, 2016) for a more comprehensive understanding of social entrepreneurship in social venture.
A literature review was from what makes social entrepreneurship entrepreneurial and what makes social entrepreneurship social to the concept and range of social entrepreneurship in an extended and inclusive perspective. Swanson & Zhang (2010) propose the social entrepreneurship zone which intends to “position social entrepreneurship as a function and of the intended approaches to make social change and the degree of business practices applied to implement these intentions; and to avoid positioning it based on legal organizational forms” (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). In the entrepreneurship zone, the concept and differences between social improvement region (SIEVs’ home) and social transformation region (STEVs’ home) are identified, as SIEVs could be an organization making donations strategically for the support of social change and providing social agencies assistance with needed expertise into their social change activities, while STEVs are taking direct action toward initiating social change through applying business concepts (Swanson & Zhang, 2010). Moreover, In the research field of social entrepreneurship and social venture, Lundstrom & Zhou (2014) propose a three dimensional perspective to point out that social venture is an ecologic whole by business venture, humanity venture and social venture, in which the key element of this perspective is the humanity venture defined as the creation of shared inner value system in an organization.
In recent years, the entrepreneurship’s role in poverty reduction has drawn more attention in both research and practice, as well as the significant changes of the guiding principle, strategy and the specific implementation towards poverty reduction on Chinese government’s level, Serve for China (SFC) as an innovative social organization committed to the work of rural poverty reduction through entrepreneurship by a group of elite youth, could be a special and representative practice in contemporary China. However, as it develops, intense conflicts between SFC and its fellows started to draw much attention. Rosa (2013, 2016)’s theory of resonance can be very helpful for answering how these conflicts happened on the individuals’ level and SFC’s structural level on the matter of social entrepreneurship. Fellows were experiencing the alienation for that the core values of certain poverty reduction perspectives through entrepreneurship with strict time norms resulting from the logic of competition in latemodern society, this kind of conflicts demonstrate that creativity, subjectivity and passion are no longer for the autonomy of the old “modernity”, but to enhance their competitiveness (Rosa, 2013), and the logic of escalatory acceleration and logic of competition have already invaded the nature of social entrepreneurship, causing the alienation of those elements of social entrepreneurship. On the aspect of SFC’s structure, the conflicts inside SFC could be regarded as the alienation of social entrepreneurship by the coexistence of SIEV (SFC’s backline) and STEV (SFC’s frontline) in one organization.
Based on the above analysis, I argue that Lundstrom & Zhou (2014)’s three dimensional perspective of social entrepreneurship would provide good insights on the establishment of the axes of resonance when it encounters obstructions due to the continuing alienation. As Rosa (2013) suggests that if institutional conditions are made to help the subject and the relating world to have more opportunities to generate harmonious resonance, thus the subject could get more support from the relating world for his/her self-actualization. Humanity venture which is defined as the creation of shared inner value system in an organization in the three dimensional perspective would become the institutional condition to facilitate the transformation of alienation and resonance on the matter of social entrepreneurship in the coexistence of SIEV and STEV in one organization, when business venture and social venture had been overly strengthened.
The author worked as the supervisor of Public Relation division in SFC during November 2017 to June 2018. Special thanks to the people I worked with during that time, who helped me understand the social venture in different perspectives.