2008 - Marketing Educators' Association

BUILDING A MARKETING CURRICULUM TO SUPPORT COURSES IN SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SOCIAL VENTURE COMPETITIONS
Regina P. Schlee, Seattle Pacific University, School of Business and Economics,
Seattle, WA 98119, rschlee@spu.edu
Mary T. Curren, California State University, Northridge,
Department of Marketing, Northridge, CA 91330, mary.curren@csun.edu
Katrin R. Harich, California State University, Fullerton,
College of Business and Economics, Fullerton, CA 92834, kharich@fullerton.edu
The term “social entrepreneurship” has gained a
great deal of attention in the past few years in
universities, business journals, and the popular
media. Currently, several universities have programs
in social entrepreneurship, offer courses in social
entrepreneurship, and/or sponsor social venture
competitions.
However, most of the business programs offering
social venture programs focus the courses and
workshops they offer on management issues such
as leading and motivating volunteers, and the
financial issues of securing start-up capital and
providing for the operations of such an organization.
Marketing courses are generally offered as electives
and are often indistinguishable from marketing
courses offered in most business curricula.
Because of the newness and the diversity of social
enterprise programs, the discipline of marketing has
not addressed the curricular requirements of
students involved in social entrepreneurship
programs and/or social ventures. A review of the
literature revealed that social entrepreneurship
programs include some marketing concepts such as
opportunity identification and promotion, but there is
very little elaboration as to how the marketing
requirements of social ventures differ from those of
traditional for-profit enterprises or non-profit
organizations.
Our experiences with social enterprise programs,
however, have led us to believe that such programs
require an additional set of skills to those covered in
most marketing curricula. This study examines the
ABSTRACT
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implications of the increased popularity of social
enterprise programs and social venture competitions
for the marketing curriculum.
Most importantly, the populations of interest in social
ventures tend to be different than groups traditionally
targeted by marketers. Social ventures in the U.S.
often target the homeless, migrant populations, or
other populations that are not adequately served by
social services or charities. There are usually no
lists of those individuals that can be used as a
sampling frame. Sampling techniques need to be
adapted to populations that cannot be reached at a
specific address. Additionally, traditional survey
collection methods are often ineffective when
applied to individuals who may be incapable or
unwilling to communicate with interviewers.
This paper outlines a suggested marketing
curriculum to meet the needs of students preparing
for social entrepreneurship ventures. We
recommend that additional emphasis be placed on
opportunity identification, ethnographic research
methods, branding, and low cost promotions. While
most of these areas are covered in current
marketing curricula, social entrepreneurship
programs require some repackaging of information
that is available in various existing courses. Other
recommendations, such as the focus on
ethnographic research require a different set of
research skills than is currently emphasized in
marketing research courses.
References Available on Request.