Leadership Spotlight

Social entrepreneurship—starting companies that make money while solving social problems—typically gets short shrift at business schools. Sure, it's noble, but it just doesn't have the sex appeal of, say, introducing the iPod or launching a software company that might one day rival Microsoft.

A social venture's customers can be poor and its markets limited or unproven. For that reason, starting one may be even more vexing than the already daunting task of launching a typical company. "It requires more imagination. These are much tougher businesses," says management professor Ian MacMillan, director of the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center.

That's partly why MacMillan says his new class on social entrepreneurship, which began this spring, "isn't for wimps." The students not only have to come up with a business plan for a social venture, but they'll also tackle a hefty reading list. "This class was designed as a living case study," explains Emily Cieri, managing director of Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs. "The students will work on live projects and develop business plans for those projects. The ultimate goal is for them to start the businesses after the class."

To that end, students are studying how to organize a social venture, raise money, recruit employees, measure social impact and, if their venture succeeds, scale up to large size. "The basic thesis [of the class] is that many social problems, if looked at through an entrepreneurial lens, create opportunity for someone to launch a business that generates profits by alleviating that social problem," MacMillan said in the proposal for the course. "This sets in motion a virtuous cycle—the entrepreneur is incented to generate more profits and, in so doing, the more profits made, the more the problem is alleviated."