Dr Kerryn Krige

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

This course introduces, explores and critically evaluates the concepts, frameworks, methods, tools and evidence used by social entrepreneurs to operationalise, deliver and scale on their social entrepreneurial idea. 

The first term focuses on the fundamentals of social innovation and entrepreneurship and its role in achieving social change. It highlights that social issues are defined by their specific context and provides a framework to support contextual analysis. Students explore the philosophies that determine how social and environmental change is understood and acted upon, as well as its interaction with the relevant markets. Teaching is through interactive lectures, cases, guest speakers, group discussion and rigorous analysis. These are brought together to allow students to identify and critically evaluate the organisational and strategic approaches that are applied to social change.

The second term builds on and applies the ideas developed in the first term, preparing students intellectually for their international trip. It introduces the building blocks that drive the successful evolution of the social enterprise. Thus, students will learn about resourcing and scaling through analysis and application of the concepts, frameworks, methods, tools and evidence used to operationalise a social entrepreneurial idea.

At the heart of the course is the interaction between theory and practice. This is achieved through a progressive relationship with a social organisation in a developing country context. In the first term this is done through a virtual research week which is followed by –in-country field work – in past years, students have travelled to Kenya and South Africa.   Students therefore work closely with practitioners embedded in the social change landscape in different country contexts. They study alongside partner organisations, applying their class teachings, developing their practical experience, and providing recommendations that support the organisations sustainability.

Student teams present their final recommendations from the trips to faculty, applying the analytical tools developed through the two terms.

This progressive, hands-on approach equips students with the skills to navigate, design and lead innovative social enterprise initiatives, that are responsive to diverse needs and changing contexts.

30 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
30 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
6 hours of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

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 one case study during AT.

• Baker, T., & Welter, F. (2020). Why Contexts Play an Ever-Increasing Role in Entrepreneurship Research. In Contextualizing Entrepreneurship Theory (pp. 3–13). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351110631-2
• Biggart, N. W., & Delbridge, R. (2004). Systems of Exchange. Academy of Management Review, 29(1), 28–49.
• Chalmers, D. (2021). Social Entrepreneurship’s Solutionism Problem. Journal of Management Studies, 58(5), 1363–1370. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12676
• Cherrier, H., Goswami, P., & Ray, S. (2017). Social entrepreneurship: Creating value in the context of institutional complexity. Journal of Business Research, 86 (November 2017), 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.10.056
• Coviello, N., Autio, E., Nambisan, S., Patzelt, H., & Thomas, L. D. W. (2024). Organizational scaling, scalability, and scale-up: Definitional harmonization and a research agenda. Journal of Business Venturing, 39(5), 106419. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2024.106419
• Hamann, R., Luiz, J., Ramaboa, K., Khan, F., Dhlamini, X., & Nilsson, W. (2020). Neither Colony nor Enclave: Calling for dialogical contextualism in management and organization studies. Organization Theory, 1(1), 263178771987970. https://doi.org/10.1177/2631787719879705
• Santos, F. M. (2012). A Positive Theory of Social Entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Ethics, 111(3), 335–351. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1413-4

Exam (40%), duration: 120 minutes in the Spring exam period.

Learning Log / reflective learning report (15%).

Project (45%).

This component of assessment includes an element of group work.