Aim of the Minor

This minor is intended to equip students with the instruments needed to develop earned-income strategies for charities and to launch social enterprises. This new discipline is often referred to as Social Entrepreneurship (S-ENT). The minor will contain classes providing the theories and tools required to start, finance, and grow charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Through the minor, students will get a better understanding of the particularities and special features of non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurial efforts. Using the knowledge accumulated in their major and combined with the information taken from the minor, students will be able to address current issues in the non-profit sector while being better prepared for the environment they wish to engage in. Its unique interdisciplinary design implies that students from many different disciplines work together (business, political sciences, public health, sociology).

The Minor's development of personal competences

The purpose of this minor is to provide the students with tools to prepare themselves for the not-for-profit job market. The idea of the minor is to allow students to follow their usual master studies (i.e. in marketing, international business or organization) but to specialise through their electives in the area of Social Entrepreneurship. The courses that are part of the minor will address present issues of non-profit organizations, activities in developing countries and skills for building a sustainable strategy for entrepreneurial endeavors.

Why take a Minor?

Taking a minor as a supplement to a major gives the students an additional strength in their job profile. CBS seeks to increasingly profile itself within the field of sustainable entrepreneurship, and business with a social angle.

Conditions to receive the Minor

To receive the minor, students must take courses in order to accumulate 22,5 ECTS. 

The minor courses can be taken individually, but interested students will be offered the opportunity to sign up for all three courses in one go. Only students who take all three courses that combined add up to 22,5 ECTS will obtain CBS’s minor in Social Entrepreneurship and Not-for-Profit Management. All minor courses as well as the minor are open to students enrolled in all CBS’s master programmes.

To the top

The Minor will comprise of the following courses:

The domain of social change is no longer reserved to students of political sciences and development studies. Increasingly business students are recognized as possessing important skills that can drive social change. This new discipline is often referred to as Social Entrepreneurship (S-ENT). S-ENT describes the discovery and sustainable exploitation of opportunities to create public goods. This is usually done through the generation of disequilibria in market and non-market environments. The S-ENT process can in some cases lead to the creation of social enterprises. These social ventures are hybrid organizations exhibiting characteristics of both the for-profit and not-for profit sector. Individuals engaging in S-ENT are usually referred to as social entrepreneurs, a term that describes resourceful individuals working to create social innovation. They do not only have to identify (or create) opportunities for social change (that so far have been unexploited), they must also muster the resources necessary to turn these opportunities into reality. A typical example is Prof. Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank (Bangladesh) and recipient of the Nobel Peace price in recognition of his contribution to poverty alleviation through the invention and popularization of Microfinance. Other examples include fair trade or car-sharing. Today many foundations aim to identify and promote social entrepreneurs. Two prominent examples are Ashoka and the Skoll Foundation. So called venture philanthropists adopt methods from the domain of venture capital, for example, encouraging social entrepreneurs to provide detailed business plans and to measure and report systematically on their social performance. Social Return on Investment (S-ROI) analysis is an example, for an emerging tool aiming to describe the social impact of S-ENT in dollar terms, relative to the philanthropic investment made.

Back to Courses

 This course has been developed and is offered as cooperation between Copenhagen Business School, Lund University, Øresund Entrepreneurship Academy and Marketing Consulting Services. It is inspired by current important topics like the democratization of innovation, microfinance, improving the living standard of the bottom of the pyramid, the development of new energy sources and developing business ideas out of online and/or distributed communities. This course teaches students how to find, evaluate and develop innovative ideas for the benefit of individuals, companies and the society (resulting in sustainable innovations).

 In this course students get to learn the models and tools taken from theory on sustainability and corporate social responsibility, innovation management and entrepreneurship literature. For instance, we take a look at new search techniques to identify valuable individuals and their ideas for companies (as for instance the Procter and Gamble “connect and develop” model), we look at new business models (e.g. platform leadership) as Apple or LEGO apply it, we look at new ways of financing entrepreneurial individuals (e.g. microfinance MyC4), and learn how to co-create innovations with distributed actors inside and outside of organizations. Based on these cases, students develop and adapt their own innovative tools/models or work on their own cases. Students take part in an “instant innovation camp” where they learn to reflect and apply theories and models.

 The relevance of this course results from a common dilemma in industries that depend on the generation of sustainable innovations. There is a high number of ideas to be identified and evaluated. From the mass of ideas only few will survive to become ready solutions. We meet this challenge and search for ideas, evaluate them and select the most promising ones.

 Once we have experienced the essential tools and methods to identify and evaluate new ideas and tools in class there are three different options that students have (depending on the availability of partner companies for the course):

 To 1) develop innovative, sustainable tools that companies can apply, to 2) work on hypothetical or real cases that the students bring into the course and 3) to work on real projects from partner companies.

 We test the abilities during the highlight of the course: the Instant Innovation Camp. Student teams, course coordinators and potential company partners meet for 8 hours to discuss the developed tools and cases or to further develop innovative solutions.

 The type of exam used in this course (individual project exam/home assignment) allows the students to follow the development of the course in writing in their projects and to reflect on their experiences over the whole duration of the course, including the innovation camp and the co-creation of real solutions for real companies.

Back to Courses

This class is aimed at students interested in social entrepreneurship and the launching of social purpose organizations in areas such as for example the voluntary sector, microfinance, fair trade, or the arts and culture. As a participant in this course you will gain hands-on experience with the practice of business plan writing. You are expected to identify a real-world opportunity in the form of an innovation that will create charitable or societal benefits, either being developed in an academic environment or in the private sector. You will then be required to "transfer" that idea into the real world. This will consist of developing a mission statement in which the intended social impact is identified clearly.

The course will develop capabilities in social opportunity identification as well as the writing of business plans for social enterprises. You will learn how to identify ideas for social innovation that will help create charitable or societal benefits. Furthermore, you will be introduced to the discipline of business plan writing. As a participant you will practice the use of theoretical texts in a practical context. In particular you will be asked to set up your own social enterprise during the course of the class, which will expose you to the practical challenges associated with launching social ventures.

Back to Courses

Please contact us at s-ent@cbs.dk if you would like to receive detailed information on each of the courses.

To the top

The S-ENT Minor is open to:

Registration for the Minor starts in May of each year. The electives office will publish the dates for the start of the registration period as well as the deadline for registration.

If you would like us to let you know when registration starts, just send us an e-mail at s-ent@cbs.dk expressing your interest in the S-ENT Minor.

Once the registration period starts, you will be able to register for all three courses in one go (by choosing the Minor in Social Entrepreneurhsip and Not-for-Profit Management CM J47 Minor in the list provided by the electives office). Once you have chosen the Minor, you will be automatically registered for all 3 courses.

Please bear in mind that because of limited seats in each course we cannot guarantee that all registrations will be approved.

To the top

 

The S-ENT poster for international students Poster_intl

The S-ENT poster for CBS students Poster_int

To the top

 For more information please contact us at s-ent@cbs.dk.