Social innovators and social entrepreneurs face specific challenges compared to entrepreneurs whose business is not designed around social and ecological impact, and thus have a competitive disadvantage. Studies stress that next to administrative-structural barriers there are major cultural-educational as well as behavioral and psychological barriers (e.g., Abdolhosseinzadeh, Mohammadi, and Abdolhamid, 2023 ). In the following, examples of these three types of barriers are listed.
Administrative-structural challenges and barriers
- Entrepreneurs driven by a strong desire to solve a social issue they witnessed in their social systems, often face discrepancies between creation of private value and social value (Dean and McMullen 2007; Groot and Pinkse 2015; Mair and Mart ́ı 2006; Pacheco et al. 2010; Santos 2012). Scientists such as Hoogendoorn, Peter Van Der Zwan, and Roy Thurik (2019) argue that this brings various additional challenges. Namely, these entrepreneurs typically (1) exploit opportunities in markets that are characterized by imperfection and failure, (2) need to initiate institutional change to realize changes to existing rules, public policy, norms, and legislation and (3) require a broad knowledge base and be able to cope with more varied and more complex stakeholder relations.
- Established funding structure triggers short-time focus and leaves little time to develop the organization and its products / services.
- Barriers to measuring the impact of social innovation, namely (1) lack of stakeholder awareness in the field of social innovation, (2) difficulties in selecting the metrics to assess social innovation, (3) problems in selecting criteria to identify best-fitted indicators to social innovation, (4) lack of beneficiaries engagement, (5) lack of financial and public support, and (6) lack of consensus in the social innovation definition.
- It’s often not the innovator who profits from the innovation
Cultural-educational barriers
- On a societal level we miss cultural readiness for more equitable and just organizations, as we were socialized by more hierarchical structures in our private and organizational environment. Consequently, social innovation initiatives often face a passivity of society/lack of beneficiary engagement.
- Sustainable development endeavors are characteristically based on highly generalized models and linear thinking, that pay too little attention to human intentions, motives, preferences, and fundamental values that frame the constitution of societal institutions and structures, as well as individual and collective behaviors.
- Organizations lack holistic strategies that also consider restructuring individual roles to incorporate additional skills and competencies, creating expert groups, and even outsourcing specific tasks.
- Lack of understanding of how to transform business models for sustainable development as well as of the potential of alternative business / ownership models
Behavioral and psychological challenges and barriers
- Resistance to change: Transformation is inherently risky and unpredictable. They often are accompanied by the belief that inaction would fail or, in the worst-case scenario, destruction (Muller et al., 2018). This often triggers worries and resistance in those involved, leading to skepticism and sometimes attempts to boycott
- Sustainable entrepreneurs show greater fear of personal failure
- More negative perceptions of financial, administrative and informational support
- Narrative barriers with regards to social innovation, the social and solidarity economy, and alternative forms of business or organization
Research on sustainable innovation increasingly investigates the coevolutionary process in which technologies, social practices and institutions change towards sustainability (Boons et al., 2013). Scholars also conclude that “organizations can only be sustainable when the whole societal system is sustainable; both structural and cultural changes are required to facilitate firm- and system-level sustainability.” (Stubbs & Cocklin, 2008). To enable social impact organizations to achieve their vision and become vehicles in the societal transformation we offer holistic programs that combine the following.
- Knowledge transfer to close the narrative and information gap
- Process guidance to assist in the development of a customized organizational design and strategy
- Cultural transformation to fuel and ground the change process in upgraded mental models and behavioral patterns
The objective of our transdisciplinary and transsectorial design approach for sustainable solutions is to address root causes and allow holistic societal transformation. This entails…
- Closing the gap between capitalist business values and social and environmental impact
- Providing guidance in challenging processes to enable sustainable entrepreneurs to identify the ideal organizational structures and processes for their specific purposes
- Facilitating deeper and faster transformation processes by combining 1-to-1 support with peer learning formats
- Ensuring both structural and cultural readiness by addressing the inner and outer – from knowledge, belief systems and culture to organizational design
- Inspiring and encouraging pioneering approaches to social innovation by educating participants about alternative methods and organizational structures and creating a brave space that allow the pushing of boundaries in pursuits of entrepreneurial solutions to big social and environmental problems
We tackle these objectives through a 3-pillar approach with a total of repeating 4 formats:
Pillar A: Knowledge Transfer
Format 1: Virtual speaker series for knowledge transfer, inspiration, and exchange around transformative business forms, structures, and cultures
What it is: Virtual learning containers that expose participants to a variety of organizational forms, legal structures, and organizational cultures and stimulate inspirational conversations around these topics
What it looks like:
- minimum of 6 online sessions with experts in alternative organizational forms, legal structures, and organizational cultures
- interactive peer-learning format
Pillar B: Process Guidance
Format 2: In-depth guidance and systemic process support in the development of strategy and structures to implement the participating group’s vision and mission
What it is: with this measure participants will benefit from direct consultation and systemic coaching to bridge the inspiration and ideation phase of their organizational design, processes and culture to implementation. Our program will achieve this by creating psychological safety to push boundaries and pursue solutions to big social and environmental problems
What it looks like:
- 5-6 weeks program with 1-2 days per week
- Individual support
Pillar C: Cultural Transformation
Format 3: 6 week transformative workshop series for Inner Development
What it is: an interactive workshop series that fosters facilitation of future-ready mental models and behavioral patterns along with other transformative skills needed to realize outer change
What it looks like:
- Workshops that allow guided, experiential learning
- Combination of transdisciplinary design frameworks, somatics, and art that allow in-depth learning
Format 4: Peer-learning format to accelerate learning among all organizations that participate in the Transekt program
What it is: a sandbox to experiment with democratic leadership and distributed ownership of their services. Here we explore the social and environmental benefits of cooperative business models and structures designed for the 22nd century. Given limits of growth and impending environmental transformation, we support organizations in finding sustainable interventions and solutions to their business need
What it looks like:
- Monthly in-person gatherings with the representatives of all participating organizations serving as a brave space where individual struggles can be shared and innovative approaches can be tested.
- co-created space for reflecting on lived experiences incl. struggles and individual responses and peer supervision / case lab