Professor Connson Locke and additonal lecturers (TBC)

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This course is not available as an outside option.

The aim of this course, together with Social Innovation Design (MG4G2), is to help you to better understand, design, lead, and grow a social enterprise. This course – MG4G1 – focuses on the first part of your entrepreneurial journey, starting with the crucial issue of understanding the social problem of your relevant target group. We will also discuss key elements of the entrepreneurial journey, such as Lean Startup, pivots and learning from failure, as well as how to engage with others, such as other entrepreneurs, investors, incubators and accelerators to help you reach your goals better. 

At the heart of both MG4G1 and MG4G2 is a real-life, evidence-based design challenge for a social enterprise, in the form of a group project in a low-income neighbourhood in Nairobi or a township in Cape Town. The project starts with building a Theory of Change, based on your understanding of the social problem of your target group, anchored in fieldwork. 

30 hours of seminars in the AT.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Students will be expected to produce 1 essay in the AT.

• dos Santos, Luciane Lucas, and Swati Banerjee. “Social Enterprise: Is It Possible to Decolonise This Concept?” Theory of Social Enterprise and Pluralism. 1st ed. Routledge, 2019. 3–17. Web.
• Suddaby, R., Bruton, G., & Walsh, J. P. (2018). What We Talk About When We Talk About Inequality: An Introduction to the Journal of Management Studies Special Issue. Journal of Management Studies, 55(3), 381–393. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12333
• Diochon, M. (2013). Social entrepreneurship and effectiveness in poverty alleviation: A case study of a Canadian First Nations community. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 4(3), 302-330.
• Najafizada, S. A. M., & Cohen, M. J. (2017). Social entrepreneurship tackling poverty in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan. World Development Perspectives, 5, 24–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2017.02.003
• Lean Start-Up in Settings of Impoverishment: The Implications of the Context for Theory, GD Bruton, C Pryor, JA Cerecedo Lopez, Journal of Management, 01492063231204869

Essay (40%) in the WT.
Group project (40%) and learning log (20%) in the AT.