A growing number of graduate students are seeking to specialize in social entrepreneurship – the development of for-profit companies that deliver socially responsible products or services, or are tied to social causes. As a response, business schools are tailoring their curricula to accommodate their interests.

The following are a few graduate programs that address this new paradigm:

The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School explores such models as venture philanthropy and an ethical stock exchange – an alternative that is less focused on financial and more on environmental and social returns than the traditional exchange model.

The Allwin Initiative for Corporate Citizenship is an on-campus group at Tuck School of Business located at Dartmouth College. The vision of the Allwin Initiative is to embue Tuck students with “a heightened social conscience, a strong sense of business ethics, an understanding of social enterprise, and a familiarity with the management tools that facilitate corporate responsibility and community involvement.”

The Center for Responsible Business at the University of California at Berkely/Haas School of Business was founded in 2003 thanks to the generosity of actor/philanthropist Paul Newman, among others. The Center offers an integrated portfolio of research, teaching, experiential learning and outreach.

According to the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s The Johnson School, solutions to environmental and social problems “are business opportunities, not a cost of doing business.” The program includes such courses as Sustainability as a Driver for Innovation in the Entrepreneurial Organization and Corporate Social Responsibility: Organizational Issues.

A number of conditions within the U.S. and globally could be driving today’s budding entrepreneurs to have a deeper sense of social and environmental responsibility, such as:

  • A natural outgrowth of our more socially aware society.
  • A tightening of the job market, leading to more creative start-up ventures.
  • A reaction to the financial crisis and what is interpreted as Wall Street greed.
  • An opportunity for laid-off employees to find greater meaning in their next career stage.

In any case, we can look forward to an era of significant social and environmental solutions by for-profit businesses. If they do it right, they will do well by doing good.

- LuAnne Speeter