Social Entrepreneurship Education as an Innovation Hub for Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: The Case of the KAIST Social Entrepreneurship MBA Program

Moon Gyu Kim, Ji-Hwan Lee, Taewoo Roh and Hosung Son
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Moon Gyu Kim: KAIST College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Hoegi-ro 85, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02455, Korea
Ji-Hwan Lee: KAIST College of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Hoegi-ro 85, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02455, Korea
Taewoo Roh: Department of International Trade and Commerce, Soonchunhyang University, Unitopia 901, Soonchunhyang-ro 22, Sinchang-myeon, Asan-si, Chungchungnam-do 31538, Korea
Hosung Son: Korea Electronics Technology Institute, Saenari-ro 25, Bundang-gu, Seong-nam, Gyeong-gi 13509, Korea

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-23

Abstract: As social problems become more extensive and diverse, one of the most critical capabilities of social entrepreneurs is connecting and aligning various stakeholders. Social entrepreneurs can solve problems better through collaboration with stakeholders, and this leads to sustainable innovation of society. Accordingly, social entrepreneurship education (SEE) programs should be designed and operated to cultivate social entrepreneurs’ abilities to enhance connectivity with all relevant entities of the social enterprise ecosystem. Consequently, SEE can form ever-growing communities of social entrepreneurs while functioning as innovation hubs for entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) evolving on their own. To this end, this study proposes a design and assessment framework for SEE. The framework emphasizes strengthening internal connectivity among SEE program members and external connectivity with outside entities, including universities, firms, government agencies, civil societies, and natural environments. This framework clarifies how and to whom social entrepreneurs should connect throughout the SEE process. This paper analyzes the case of an MBA degree SEE program in Korea using this framework and identifies directions for further improvement of SEE, contributing to the social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education literatures by integrating SEE’s key features with social theories of learning and the quintuple helix model for sustainable innovation ecosystems. Practically, our findings provide a useful benchmark to find isolated internal and external entities that need more active interactions to achieve SEE’s purposes.

Keywords: social entrepreneurship education; innovation hub; entrepreneurial ecosystem; KAIST social entrepreneurship MBA program; quintuple helix model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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